J. A. SPARKS,; 

161 Fuii'tii Street, 
Opposite St. Paul's, 
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S LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. # 



f UNITED STATES OP AMERICA.! 



CHURCH OF ENGLAND VINDICATED 

AGAINST 

ROMANISM AND ULTRA-PROTESTANTISM: 



IN 

SERMONS 

PREACHED AND PUBLISHED ON VARIOUS OCCASIONS , 
BY 

WALTER FARQUHAR HOOK, DD. 



[KROil THS XAST SDITIOH".] 



BALTIMORE: 
JOSEPH ROBINSON. 



1846. 



3l(5l 3/ 



HIS BROTHEK AND FRIEND 



ROBERT HOOK, ESQ. 



THIS VOLUME 



IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED 



BY 



THE AUTHOR, 



MDCCCXIT, 



PREFACE. 



At the suggestion of his publisher, the Author 
has been induced to collect into one volume, the 
Sermons, which, during the last twenty years, he 
has published from time to time, in vindication of 
the purest and best reformed branch of the Catholic 
Church, the Church of England. And this he has 
done the more readily, since circumstances have 
occurred, by the defection of some to the ranks 
either of ultra-protestantism or of popery, which 
render it incumbent upon Anglican Churchmen to 
declare openly that they abide by and are ready to 
maintain the position of the Church of England, in 
the via media between the two extremes: our Church 
being protestant as opposed to the abuses and idola- 
tries of Popery, and Catholic as opposed to the 
heresies of ultra-protestantism. 

The Anglican principle upon which our Church 
was providentially led, at the period of the Reforma- 
tion, to form a strong, positive, objective system, is 
that of asserting, as truth, what was received by the 
early undivided Church, and can be proved by Holy 
Scripture. As long as we adhere to this principle, 
it can be shewn, as is done in one of the following 
Sermons, that our protest against the peculiarities of 



vi 



PREFACE. 



the Romish system, is supported by the whole 
Church, as well as by the written Word. This 
assertion is confirmed by the fact, that those among 
us who have fallen away to Rome have first repu- 
diated the Anglican principle ; they have forsaken 
the primitive Church and orthodox tradition, and 
have had recourse to the novel invention of develop- 
ment. Whenever the Anglican principle has been 
strongly pressed, as in the days of Bishop Bull, and 
in our own times, Romanists and Romanizers, who, 
against ultra-protestants, are strong in their expres- 
sions of respect for primitive Christianity, have been 
obliged to retreat from that position and adopt the 
doctrine of developments. 

The ultra-protestants take for their guide, that 
view of the Bible which their private judgment 
adopts 5 Romanists have recourse to their doctrine of 
developments ; Anglicans take the real signification 
of the Bible, as accepted by the Primitive Church, 
and thereby witnessed to be truly the mind of the 
Spirit : and the Author feels that he is expressing 
not his own conviction only, when he asserts that 
late controversies have only tended to strengthen 
this, the great principle of the English Reformation. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 

SERMON I. 

ON THE CHUECH AND THE ESTAB- 
LISHMENT 13 

SERMON II. 

ON THE CHURCH AND THE ESTAB- 
LISHMENT - ... - 29 

SERMON III. 

THE CATHOLICISM OF THE ANGLI- 
CAN CHURCH AND ITS BRANCHES - 45 

Preached in the Episcopal Chapel at Stirling, on Sunday March 
xxth, 1^5, at the Consecration of the Right Eev. M. H. 
Luscombe, LLD. 

SERMON IV. 

THE SIN AND DANGER OF LUKE- 
WARMNESS 69 

Preached at the opening of the nave of the Parish Church of 
Leamington Priors, on Thursday the ixth of May, ]844. 

SERMON V. 

TAKE HEED WHAT YE HEAR - - . 91 

With a Preface on some of the existing Conti-oversies in the 
Church. 

SERMON VI. 

THE CATHOLIC CLERGY OF IRE- 
LAND: THEIR CAUSE DEFENDED - 115 

Preached in the Parish Church of Buckingham, on Thursday 
January viith, 1836. 

SERMON VII. 

THE NOVELTIES OF ROMANISM: Or, 
POPERY REFUTED BY TRADITION 141 

Preached in St. Andrew's Church, Manchester, in 1839. 



viii 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 

SERMON VIII. 

THE GOSPEL, AND THE GOSPEL 
ONLY, THE BASIS OF EDUCATION 165 

Preached in St. Peter's Church, Liverpoolj in 1S39. 
SERMO>' IX. 

THE COUESE OF PASTORAL DUTY 
OF A MINISTER OF THE CHURCH 
OF ENGLAND - 199 

An Inaugural Discourse, preached in the Parish Church of Leeds, 
on the xvith day of April, 1837, being tlie Third Sunday after 
Easter. 

SERMO??- X. 

THE WORK OF GOD FOR, IN, AND 
WITH THE CHURCH 211 

A Farewell Semion, preached in Trinity Church, Coventry, June 
iTth, 1837. 

SERMO>^ XI. 

MUTUAL FORBEARANCE IN THINGS 
INDIFFERENT 225 

Preached at the Consecration of St. John's Church, Hawarden, 
on the xxth July, 1S43. 

SERMON XII. 

PERIL OF IDOLATRY 249 

Preached at the Consecration of Cliflord Church in the Diocese 
of York, in 1 839. 

SERMON XIII. 

HEAR THE CHURCH 277 

Preached at the Chapel Royal, June xviith, 1838. 



SERMON 1. 



The Church was like a garden, in which things rank and gross in nature 
were running to seed : but they did not possess it wholly ; it still produced 
beautiful flowers, and wholesome herbs and fruit. At the Reformation, -^ise 
men would have weeded the garden, but rash ones were for going to work with 
the plough and tlie harrow. Southet. 



The Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the Truth. — 
1 Tim. iii. 15. 

Bt the Church is here meant that cominimity of Chris- 
tians, existing in its various branches, which was instituted 
by our Saviour Jesus Christ Himself, and by Him placed 
Under the superintendence of the Apostles and their succes- 
sors. 

Of the commission of all the Apostles, except St. Paul, 
we read in the Gospels. There we see that, as the Father 
sent the Lord Jesus in His character of the Messiah, so 
did the Lord Jesus in that character send His Apostles.* 
To them He appointed a kingdom, even as the Father 
had appointed a kingdom to Him.^ And having pre- 
viously commissioned them to consecrate the Sacrament 
of His Body and Blood, and to celebrate that ordinance 
in remembrance of Him, He left them, as His last in- 
junction — just before he went up on high to receive good 
gifts for men — this command: — "Go ye therefore, and 
disciple all nations, baptizing them in the name of the 

^ John, XX. 21. ^ Luke, xxii. 29. 

2 



14 



THE CHURCH 



Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, teach- 
ing them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded 
you/'"^ 

Our Saviour at the same time added: — And lo! I 

am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. 
Amen — that is to say, He would be with them in these 
their ministrations, co-operating with them by His Spirit. 
But this He could not be, if His promise were intended 
only to include the eleven persons to whom He immedi- 
ately spake. For these persons, instead of abiding till 
the end of the world, in due course, went the way of all 
flesh. Our Lord must, therefore, have meant, what the 
Church has always understood Him to mean, that He 
would be present with that hody of men whom He thus 
incorporated and commissioned to act as His ministers 
and as the rulers of the Church. Individuals were to 
pass away, but, by a constant succession of members, the 
commissioned body was to continue, and, so continuing, 
to be blessed with His spiritual presence. 

That the eleven who were first commissioned by our 
Lord thus understood their commission is clear, since 
the very first thing they did was to exercise the privilege, 
which their commission implied, of adding to their num- 
ber. They determined to make up their number to twelve, 
(the apostate Judas having forfeited his bishopric;) and for 
this purpose they selected Joseph, called Barsabas, and 
Matthias. And God sanctioned their proceeding by inter- 
fering by Miracle, on their supplication, to point out which 
of the two should be consecrated. 

The fact to which I have alluded, and which is record- 
ed in the first chapter of the Acts, is important on two 
considerations ; first, it shows that the Apostles under- 
stood our Lord's commission not to be confined to those 



Matthew, xxviii. 19, 20. 



AND THE ESTABLISHMENT. 



15 



to whom it was immediately addressed, but to embrace 
also^their successors; and, secondly, since they performed 
this act hefore the miraculous effusion of the Holy Ghost 
on the day of Pentecost, it is obvious that they made a 
distinction between that commission, which they received 
only in common with the other Bishops of the Church, 
and that miraculous power which was conferred upon 
them to enable them to execute their commission under 
circumstances of peculiar difficulty. 

To the number of commissioned ministers of Christ, 
our Lord Himself added the great Apostle of the Gen- 
tiles, St. Paul. The divine Head of the Church, the 
blessed Jesus, has a right to send on an extraordinary 
mission whom He will; and we should never reject any 
one who should come among us so commissioned. Only 
as when St. Paul was commissioned, out of due course, 
the commission was notified by miracle — so should we 
say to any one who pretended that he had received a 
command from on high to minister in sacred things, and 
that he was thus exempted from the usual form of ordi- 
nation conferred by the successors of the Apostles: — "It 
may be as you say, but before we admit your pretensions, 
let a miracle be performed, to convince us that God Him- 
self has sanctioned so great an exception to the general 
rule which He has Himself laid down." 

Of the early growth and progress of the Church, (that 
community of Christians placed by our Lord under the 
superintendence of the Apostles and their successors) we 
read in the Acts of the Apostles, and in the apostolic Epis- 
tles. 

The Apostles went into all nations, as they were com- 
manded, and preached Christ crucified ; but not only 
this : wheresoever they went they at the same time estab- 
lished the kingdom of Christ by organizing the Church. 



16 



THE CHURCH 



The conduct of the Son of God was. in no respect, more 
distinguished from that of the celebrated heathen philoso- 
phers than in this — that they, when they had broached 
their tenets, tooii no steps for the promulgation of them ; 
whereas. He. by instituting His Sacraments, and ordain- 
ing a body of men whose business to the end of time will 
be to administer them, has secured for ever, even by 
human m-eans. the promulgation of the two great truths 
of His religion, a belief in the atonement and in the 
necessity of grace. Thus the Apostles, in every place to 
which they went, not only preached the Gospel, but 
ordained an order of men, with powers inferior to their 
own. and without permission to add to their numbers, 
whose office it was and still is to preach the Gospel, to 
offer the prayers of the people, to bless in God's name, 
and to administer both the Sacraments. These men were 
called Presbyters (contracted into Priests.) and some- 
times Bishops — not meaning by that title what we now 
mean, but simply a superintendent of a single congrega- 
tion. To assist these, with more limited powers, they 
also appointed Deacons. Hence we find the early 
Churches thus constituted : there was a baptized people, 
to minister among whom Presbyters and Deacons were 
appointed, while over the whole body the Apostle who 
first founded the Church presided as what we should now 
call the Bishop. He visited this Churcli (as our Bishops 
in these days visit the Churches under them) as circum- 
stances required: and if detained from them long, he was 
accustomed to send to them his directions by letter.. 
Thus the Epistles of St. Paul are, most of them, letters 
addressed by the inspired writer, in his character of Apostle 
or Bishop, to the Churches under his superintendence. 

Some persons seem to think that the government of 
the Churcli was essentially different in the days of the 



AND THE ESTABLISHMENT. 



17 



Apostles from what it is now, because they do not find 
the names and titles of the ecclesiastical officers precisely 
the same. For instance, as I have just said, he whom 
we now call a Presbyter or Priest was frequently styled 
in the New Testament a Bishop. But it is not for names 
that we contend. We ask what was the fact, and the 
fact was this: that the officer whom we now call a 
Bishop was at first called an Apostle, although afterwards 
it was thought better to confine the title of Apostle to 
those who had seen the Lord Jesus, while their succes- 
sors, exercising the same rights and authority, though 
unendowed with miraculous powers, contented themselves 
with the designation of Bishops. After this, the title was 
never given to the second order of the ministry. In the 
New Testament we find each Church ( as I have just 
said, and now, on account of the importance of the sub- 
ject, repeat) thus constituted : — there was an Apostle to 
superintend it — Presbyters and Deacons under him, and 
the company of Believers : the only difference is that, 
instead of calling him that presides over any particular 
branch of the Church an Apostle, we now call him a 
Bishop. And such rulers, descending from the Apostles, 
the ti'ue Church has ever possessed from the ascension of 
our blessed Saviour to the present hour; for the earliest 
uninspired writer we have — a disciple of St. John him- 
self — states it as an acknowledged rule in his day, that 
nothing was to be done without the sanction of the 
Bishop. 

In this manner was the Church originally formed. It 
extended itself into several branches, and each branch, 
continuing not only in the Apostles' doctrine, but in 
their fellowship, was called a distinct Church. AVe read 
of the Church at Jerusalem, the Church of the Thessa- 
lonians, the Church of Ephesus. and Smyrna, and 
2* 



18 



THE CHURCH 



Pergamos, and Tliyatira, and Sardis, and Philadelphia, 
and Laodicea. In one sense, they were separate Churches 
as each was complete in itself under its Bishop (called 
by St. John its Angel :) in another sense, the Church 
was one, inasmuch as in all its branches the same doc- 
trines were professed, the same episcopal discipline ob- 
served : — There was one hody and one spirit^ even as 
they were colled, in one hope of their callings one Lord, 
one faiths one haptisrn^ one God and Father of alL who 
is ahove all, and through all, and in them all. 

The Church, so constituted by our Lord, and gaverned 
by the Apostles and those Bishops, their successors, to 
whom our Lord's commission applied equally with the 
Apostles themselves — the Church so constituted was open 
universally to, all persons of all nations, and was not 
confined, as was the Jewish Church, to a single people. 
It was, therefore, called Catholic, or universal. But 
against the doctrine or discipline of this Apostolic Church, 
numerous sects professing to beheve in Chi'isr soon arose. 
These sects were generally distinguished by the i:~"n:e5 of 
their founders, whereas the true Church reje Tt.. . ::y 
designation that seemed to coufme it exclusively to one 
party or place. But as some designation was necessary, 
it was usually known by the name of the Catholic Church 
of such or such a place. And consequently the word 
Catholic, in process of time, came to signify, not univer' 
saL but true. The ancient ecclesiastical writers almost 
invariably use it in this sense — namely, to denote the 
Church, which, in any place, by the succession of its 
Bishops, has come down in regular descent from the rirst 
Apostles, as contradistinguished from all other sects. 
Those persons are consequently in error who would use 
the term Catholic to denote an amalgamation of all sects, 
for the term was in the first ages always used to distin- 



AND THE ESTABLISHiVlENT. 



guish the true Church from sectarian congregations; and 
those are still more in error who speak of the Papists as 
Catholics. If you call the Romish sect in this country 
the Catholic Church, you as much as say that it is the 
true Church. The Catholic Church means the true 
Church of Christ, holding the Apostolic doctrine, and 
governed by Bishops descending regularly from the 
Apostles — and a Catholic Church miCans a branch of 
that true Church. 

These Churches, descending from the Apostles, have con- 
tinued to the present day. They are to be found in 
the east and in the west, and against them forming the 
one Church of Christ, we know that the gates of hell will 
not prevail. But among the Churches great errors have 
prevailed, and in some of them they still exist. These 
great errors, which call out for reformation, do not pre- 
vent such Churches from being true Churches, for he is 
still a true man whose face is besmeared with dirt, and 
the diamond is still a diamond though covered with dust. 
Against the Churches, to which St. John, in the Apoca- 
lypse, was directed to address him-self, the Divine had 
many things to write; but, while he threatened punish- 
ment, he did not pronounce them to be no true Churches. 

In this country — and it is v/ith our own country that 
we are concerned — a true branch of the Catholic Church 
has existed from the remotest antiquity. Bishops from 
Britain sat in some of the earliest councils : and the Pre- 
lates, who at this present time rule the Churches of these 
realms, were validly ordained by others, who, by means 
of an unbroken spiritual descent of ordination, derived 
their mission from the Apostles and from our Lord. 
This continual descent is evident to eveiy one who 
chooses to investigate it. Let him read the catalogues 
of our Bishops ascending up to the most remote period* 



20 



THE CHURCH 



Our ordinations descend in a direct unbroken line from 
Peter and Paul, the Apostles of the Circumcision and 
the Gentiles. These great Apostles successively ordained 
Linus, Cletus, and Clement, Bishops of Pome ; and the 
Apostolic succession was regularly continued from them 
to Celestine, Gregory, and Vitalianus, who ordained 
Patrick Bishop for the Irish, and Augustine and Theo- 
dore for the English. And from those times, an unin- 
terrupted series of valid ordinations has earned down the 
Apostolical succession in our Churches to the present 
day. There is not a Bishop, Priest, or Deacon, among 
us, who cannot, if he please, trace his own spiritual des- 
cent from St. Peter or St. Paul.'^ 

That in the Church of England purity of doctrine was 
not always retained is readily admitted. In the dark 
ages, when all around was dark, the Church itself suffered 
from the universal gloom ; this neither our love of truth 
nor our wishes will permit us to deny. About the seventh 
century the Pope of Rome began to establish an influence 
and interest in our Church. The intei-ference of the 
Prelate of that great See, hejore he laid claim to any domin- 
ion of rights was at first quite justifiable, and did not exceed 
the just bounds, while it contributed much to the propaga- 
tion of the Gospel. That the Bishop of Pome was justified 
in endeavoring to aid the cause of Christianity here in Eng- 
land, when England was in Heathen darkness, will not be 
disputed by those who recognize the same right in the Arch- 
bishop of Canterbury with respect to India at the present 
time. But, in after ages, what was at first a justifiable in- 
terference was so increased as to become an intolerable 
ixsurpation. This authority was an usurpation, because it 
was expressly contrary to the decisions of a general council 



Palmer's Origines Liturgiccs, vol. ii. p. 249, 



AND THE ESTABLISHMENT. 



21 



of the Church, and such as the Scripture condemns, in that 
the Scripture places all Bishops on an equality, and so they 
ought to continue to be, except where, for the sake of order^ 
they voluntarily consent to the appointment of a President 
or Archbishop, who is nothing more than a primus inter 
pares. This usurpation for a time continued, and with it 
were introduced various corruptions, in doctrine as well as 
in discipline. 

At length, in the reign of Henry VIII. the Bishops and 
Clergy accorded with the laity and government of England, 
and threw off the yoke of the usurping Pope of Rome. 
They, at the same time, corrected and reformed all the 
errors of doctrine, and most of the errors of discipline which 
had crept into our Church during the reign of intellectual 
darkness. They condemned the monstrous doctrine of tran- 
substantiation, the worship of saints and images, communion 
in one kind, and the constrained celibacy of the Clergy, 
having first ascertained that these and similar errors were 
obtruded into the Church in the middle ages. They did not 
attempt to make new;, their object was to reform^ the Church. 
They stripped their venerable mother of the meretricious 
gear in which Superstition had arrayed her, and left her in 
that plain and decorous attire with which, in the simple 
dignity of a matron, she had been adorned by Apostolic 
hands. 

Thus, then, you see ours is the old Church of England, 
tracing its origin, not to Cranmer, and Latimer, and Ridley, 
who only reformed it — but the only Church of England, 
which traces its origin up. through the Apostles, to our 
Saviour Himself. To adopt the words of the most learned 
and pious writer to whom I have before referred : " The 
orthodox and undoubted Bishops of Great Britain and Ire- 
land are the only persons who in any manner, whether by 
ordination or possession, can prove their descent from the 



22 



THE CHURCH 



ancient Saints and Bishops of these Isles. It is a positive 
fact, that thev, and they alone^ can trace their ordinations 
from Peter and Paul, through Patrick, Augustine, Theodore, 
Colman, Columba, David, Cuthbert, Chad, Ansehn, Osmund, 
and all the other worthies of our Church."® '*It is true that 
there are some schismatical Romish Bishops in these realms, 
but they are of a recent origin, and cannot show the pre- 
scription and possession that we can. Some of these teachers 
do not profess to be Bishops of our Churches, but are titular 
Bishops of places we know not. Others usurp the titles of 
various Churches in these Islands, but are neither in posses- 
sion themselves nor can prove that their predecessors ever 
occupied them. This Sect (the sect of English Papists or 
Roman Catholics) arose in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, 
when certain persons, unhappily and blindly devoted to the 
See of Rome, refused to obey and communicate with their 
lawful pastors, who, in accordance with the law of God and 
the canons, asserted the ancient independence of the British 
and Irish Church: and the Roman Patriarch then ordained 
a few Bishops to Sees in Ireland, which were already occu- 
pied bj legitimate pastors. In England, this ministry is of 
later origin ; for tlie first Bishop of that communion was a 
titular Bishop of Chalcedon in the seventeenth century."^ 

Ycii see, then — and in these days it is particularly neces- 
sary to bear the fact in mind — that ours is the old Catholic 
Churc/i of England ; a Church which traces its origin to the 
Apostles and our Lord ; a Church which in the dark ages 

^ Origines Liturgiccp., vol. ii. p. 252. 

^ Origines Liturgiccs, vol. ii. 251. The reader is referred to this 
most interesting and satisfactory v/ork, if he wish to see the statements 
here made estabhshed and proved. See also Rose's admirable Dis' 
courses on the Commission ancl Consequent Duties of the Clergy; 
and Discourse 7, vol. i. of the Practical Theology of the truly apos- 
tolical Bishop Jebb — vw iv ayio\.%. 



AND THE ESTABLISHMENT. 



23 



laboured under abuses and corruptions, which were removed 
under the Episcopates of Archbishop Cranmer and Arch- 
bishop Parker. Nothing can be more mistaken than to speak 
of these great men as the founders of our Church. One only 
is our founder, and that is Christ. And as well might we say 
of a man when he has washed his face that he is not the 
same man as he was before his ablution, as to say of the 
Church of England that she is a different Church since the 
Reformation from what she was before. 

You will observe how important all this is which I have 
now laid before you. Unless Christ be spiritually present 
with the ministers of religion in their services, those services 
w^ill be vain. But the only ministrations to which he has 
PROMISED His presence is to those of the Bishops who are 
successors of the first commissioned Apostles, and the other 
clergy acting under their sanction and by their authority. 

I know the outcry which is raised against this — the doc- 
trine of the Christian Church for 1600 years — I know the 
outcry that is raised against it by those sects which can trace, 
their origin no higher than to some celebrated preacher at 
the Reformation. But I disregard it, because I shall, by 
God's help, continue to do, what I have done ever since I 
came among yous — namely, declare the whole council of 
God, without regard to consequences or respect of persons, 
and, at the same time, as far as in me lies, live peaceably 
with all men. 

But, after all, the outcry is most unjust. We seek not to 
condemn others, though we maintain that ours is the only 
right path. There is no precept of the Gospel more impor- 
tant than this — Judge not that ye may not he judged. If a 
man err through ignorance, ignorance such as he has had no 
means to remedy, we may surely suppose that his ignorance 

s This Sermon was preached in Coventry, in the year 1834. 



24 



THE CHURCH 



will be pardoned, and that God, though He have not pro- 
mised to be so, may yet be with him. Or, again, the same 
may be supposed when necessity is laid on us, when a man 
for instance, lives where no true Church exists, or where the 
true Church is so corrupted as to render communion with it 
impossible.^ 

'^Although with foreign reformers we, of the Church of England, 
have no immediate concern, it is important to know that, where epis- 
copacy was not retained, the reformers pleaded not principle but neces- 
sity. How Calvin stood affected in the said point of episcopacy, and 
how gladly he and other heads of the reformed Churches would have 
received it, is evident enough from his writings and epistles. In his 
Book of the Necessity of Reforming the Church he hath these words: 
Talem nobis hierarchiam exhibeani, &,c. ' Let them give us such an 
hierarchy, in which Bishops may be so above the rest as they refuse not 
to be under Christ, and depend upon Him as their only head, that they 
maintain a brotherly society, &;c. If there be any that do not behave 
themselves with reverence and obedience towards them, there is no 
anathema, but I confess them worthy of it.' But especially his opianon 
of episcopacy is manifest from a letter he, and BuUinger. and others, 
learned men of that sort, wrote, anno 1549, to King Edward VI. offer- 
ing to make him their Defender, and to have Bishops in their Churches 
for the better unity and concord among themi ; as may be seen in Arch- 
bishop Cranmer's memorials, and hkewise by a writing of Archbishop 
Abbot, found among the MSS. of Archbishop Usher, which, for the 
remarkableness of it, and the mention of Archbishop Parker's papers, 
I shall here set down. ' Perusing some papers of our predecessor, Mat- 
thew Parker, we find that John Calvin, and others of the Protestant 
Churches of Germany and elsewhere, would have had episcopacy, if 
permitted ; but could not on several accounts, partly fearing the Princes 
of the Roman Catholic faith would have joined with the Emperor and 
the rest of the popish Bishops to have depressed the same, partly being 
newly reformed and not settled, they had not sufficient wealth to sup- 
port episcopacy, by reason of their daily persecutions. Another and a 
main cause was they would not have any popish hands laid over their 
Clergy. And whereas John Calvin had sent a letter, in King Edward 



AND THE ESTABLISHxMENT. 



25 



In this respect, as in every other, we may look for our 
guidance to the .conduct of our blessed Lord Himself. 
When conversing with the woman of Samaria, He did not 
compromise the truth, at a time when the Jewish mode of 
Worship was divinely appointed and established, by letting 
her suppose that it was a thing indifferent whether men 
worshipped at Mount Gerizim or on Mount Moriah. But, 
when implying that men, at that period, ought to have wor- 
shipped at Jerusalem, He, nevertheless, did not treat as a 
heathen one who acknowledged Jehovah for her God, or 
censure as a schismatic one who continued to worship, 
through want of better information, where her fathers had 
Worshipped before her. And thus it is possible for us to 
maintain that the Church is the only Christian community 
in these realms which can jprove that it possesses the promise 
of Christ's presence in her services and Sacraments, and yet 
we may hope and believe that the blessings of His presence, 
though unpromised, may still be vouchsafed to all those who 
devoutly worship him in sincerity, though they hold not, as 
we conceive, the whole truth, as it is in Jesus. It is in 
Sion only that God appears in perfect beauty, though we 
admit He may manifest Himself elsewhere. Ours is the 
only path that can be proved to be the right one ; but there 

the Sixth's time, to have conferred with the Clergy of England about 
some things to this effect, two Bishops, viz : Gardiner and Bonner, 
intercepted the same : whereby Mr. Calvin's overture perished. And 
he received an answer, as if it had been from the reformed divines of 
those times, wherein they checked him and slighted his proposals ; from 
which time John Calvin and the Church of England were at variance 
on several points, which otherwise, through God's mercy, had been 
qualified, if those papers of his proposals had been discovered unto the 
Queen's majesty during John Calvin's life. But, being not discovered 
until or about the sixth year of her majesty's reign, her majesty much la- 
mented they were not found sooner.' " 

Strype's Life of Archbishop Parkrri 

5 



26 



THE CHURCH 



may be many by-paths, through which, though with greater 
difficulty, the traveller may arrive at the same destination, 
where, blessed be the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, we 
shall all speak the same things and. there heing no divisions 
among us, we shall he ■perfectly joined together, in the same 
mind and the same judgment} 

There is indeed such a sin as schism. Yet, as the Church 
has never attached the notion of heresy to error, not fac- 
tiously and pertinaciously maintained, so w^e may believe that 
the conscientious dissenter is not guilty of schism when he 
does not act with a scliismatical intent. 

But although it seemed well to me to offer these explana- 
tions, I wish to remind you that with the judging of others 
we have nothing to do. God is their judge, not we. Our 
business is, as regards ourselves, to prove all things, and to 
cleave to that which is good. At a period when the principles 
of toleration were little understood, and when the Puritan 
condemned the Papist, in language not less strong than that 
which the Papist employed when dealing out his anathemas 
against the Protestant, it was asked of a distinguished indi- 
vidual "whether a Papist could be saved." And very wise 
was his answer :— " You may be saved without knowing that 
— look to yourself;''^ IVhat is that to thee ? says our Saviour ; 
follow thou me} 

And if to ourselves, my brethren, we do look, let us con- 
sider seriously and solemnly the increased responsibihty 
which results from our greater advantages in being members 
of a true reformed Catholic Church. Whatever may be the 
case with others, if ive neglect so great salvation, (on the 
principle that from him to whom much is given much will be 
demanded,) as we shall be without excuse, so will our con- 

il Corinthians, i. 10. 
^Sir HenryWotton. Wordsworth's Biog. p. 43. 
^ John, xxi. 22. 



AND THE ESTABLISHMENT. 



27 



demnation be the more severe. But let us dwell not on the 
terrors but on the consolations of our Sion. To us pertain- 
eth the adoption, and the glory^ and the Covenant^ and the 
service of God, and the promises and the Sacraments, and 
among us, beyond reasonable doubt, Christ dwells^ who is 
God blessed for ever. Delightful thought, with which to 
enter the sanctuary and to approach the pulpit, the altar, or 
the font I — Dehghtful thought, with which to worship in the 
beauty of hohness, and to pour forth the soul in those self- 
same prayers through which, for at least fifteen centuries, 
the hearts of saints have winged their way to heaven I — 
Delightful thought, while with psalms, and hymns, and 
spiritual songs, we unite with the Church triumphant in 
ascribing to God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, 
blessing, and honour, and glory, and power ! 



SEHMON II. 

^\)t Cljurti) anb tl]t €stabliBl)ment 



Whoever attentively considers the subject will find that troubles in Church 
and Slate usually come to a crisis at the same time. Either originating in the 
same cause, or the immediate consequence the one of the other, sometimes the 
calamities of the Church lead the way to commotions in the State, while at other 
times it is just the reverse. So that I cannot imagine that this interchangeable 
course of things is the effect of mere accident: but I apprehend rather that these 
troubles are to be traced to our iniquities, of which they may be considered 
the punishment. Socrates Scholasticus, a. d., 439. 



And kings shall be thy nursing fathers, and their queens thy nursing 
mothers. — Isaiah, xiix. 23. 

Os a former occasion we traced the history of the Church 
through the succession of its Bishops, up to its origin in the 
commission given by our Lord to the Apostles and their 
successors. Xow, that branch of the Church which exists 
in this country has always been connected with, and closely 
allied to, the State. .Although we know little of its history 
before the conversion of the Saxons, there arp good grounds 
for supposing such to have been the case, even with respect 
to the British Church : while nothing can be more certain 
than that the conversion of our Anglo-Saxon ancestors was 
a national one. 

When the Anglo-Saxons conquered the Britons, they 
were heathens, and, persecuting the Church, either drove 
the professors of Christianity to the mountains of Wales or 
reduced them to a state of slavery. By that moral alchemy, 
through which Divine Providence converts evil into good, 
the latter circumstance prepared the way for the conversion 
of the conquerors, who seeing the pious and regular deport- 
3* 



30 



THE CHITRCH 



raent of their slaves, soon learned to respect tlieir religion. 
We may gather this fact from a letter written by Gregoiy, 
the Bishop of Kome, in the sixth century, to two of the 
kings of France, in which he states that the English nation 
was desirous of becoming Christian, and in which he, at the 
same time, complains to those mouarchs of the remissness of 
theu' Clergy in not seeking the conversion of their neighbors. 
And hence it was that GregoiT, with that piety and zeal for 
which he was pre-eminently distinguished, sent over Augus- 
tine and about forty missionaries to England, to labour in 
this good work. The success of these missionaries, the 
way having thus been paved before them, was most satisfac- 
tory. They converted Ethelbert, who was not only king of 
Kent, but Braetwalda. or chief of the Saxon monarchs. His 
example was soon followed by the kings of Essex and East 
Anglia. and gradually by the other sovereigns of England. 

The successful Augustine then went over to Aries, in 
France, where he was consecrated by the prelate of that See : 
and returning, became the first Archbishop of Canterbury, the 
patriarch and metropolitan of the Church of England. His 
See was immediately endowed with large revenues by King 
Ethelbert, who likewise established, at the instance of the 
Archbishop, the dioceses of Rochester and Loudon. The 
other kings of the heptarchy erected bishoprics equal to the 
size of their kingdoms. And the example was followed by 
their nobles, who converted their estates into parishes, erect- 
ing fit places of worship, and endowing them with tithes.* 

^The property of the Church remains, with those who have de- 
scended in an unbroken line from the Clergy- to whom it was ori^nallv 
granted. If our title be disputed, it devolves upon the adversary- to 
establish a prior claim. This the Protestant dissenter does not attempt 
to do; and, with respect to Roman Catholic dissenters, we know that, 
instead of being descended from the original grantees, their line of suc- 
cession began at Rome scarcely more than two centuries ago. ^sor can 



AND THE ESTABLISHMENT. 



31 



This fact accounts for the unequal size of our dioceses and 
parishes: the first were (though subsequently subdivided) of 
the same extent as the dominions of their respective kings ; 
the second corresponded with the estate of the patron. Nor 
was the regard of those by whom the Church was estab- 
lished and endowed confined to the spiritual edification of 
the poor; no, they knew that righteousness exalteth a nation, 
and estimating properly the advantages of infusing a Chris- 
tian spirit in the legislature, they summoned the higher order 
of the Clergy to take part in the national councils. 

Thus was the Church established and the State conse- 
crated. For many years, there appears to have continued a 
good understanding between the civil and ecclesiastical au- 
thorities, the powers of which were, in most respects, as 
in these days, blended. But, after the moral world had 
been subdued, and papal tyranny had been established, by 
the marvellous energies of Hildebrand, his crafty successors, 
the Popes of Rome, soon perceived that, in order to secure 
their dominion, it was important, as far as possible, to sever 
the alliance which had hitherto subsisted between the 
Chm'ch and the State. Representing the Church as inde- 
pendent, they regarded the King as the head of the State, 
and the Pope as supreme of the Church. Xo sectarian of 
the present day can be more hostile to an alliance between 
Church and State than were those divines who, in the middle 
ages, were devoted to the Popedom. Although the Pope,, 
however, had here in England as elsewhere, many creatures 

they claim on the ground of ^-eater similarity of doctrine. For tran= 
substantiation, the worship of saints and images, half communion, con- 
strained celibacy, &c., the doctrines and practices \vhich distinguish the 
modem Romish sect were unknown to the Anglo-Saxon Church. Ad- 
mitting, then, that we may differ in some particulars of practice from, 
our ancestors, yet certainly we do not differ from them so much as the 
modem Romanist. 



32 



THE CHURCH 



and advocates, vet many and manful were tlie repulses he 
met with from our Clergy, our Kings, and the People. His 
authority, indeed, was in this realm a mere assumption, for 
he was never elected by any synod of our Church as its 
head. Still, assuming rights to which he could lay no law- 
ful claim, his usurpations were continued until, in the reign 
of Henry VIII. the Clergy, the Monarch, and the People, 
could bear the tyranny no longer, but, throwing off the yoke, 
declared that the Pope was not the head of the Church of 
England, but that in these realms, the King is, as in times 
past he was, over all persons, and in all causes, ecclesiastical 
as well as civil, in these his dominions, supreme. 

This was the first step towards a reformation. Various 
other abuses were then corrected, as we pointed out on 
Wednesday last; and our doctrines, as well as our services, 
were brought back to that primitive simplicity and solem- 
nity in which we noAV find them. The Church (not made 
neic. but canonically reformed) still continued to be allied 
with the State, and has remained from that day to this — 
except for a short period during the Pvebellion — estab- 
lished. 

Such is the fact, and the history of the fact. The Church 
in this country has come down to us established and endow- 
ed. And the first question to be asked is. whether in this 
alliance between Church and State there be any thing un- 
scriptural and unholy. If there be, let the text of Scripture 
be cited which prohibits this connexion. AVhere is it ? 
Observe, we do not say that the Church must be established, 
so that unless it were established it would cease to be a 
Church. God forbid I AVe only say that it niay estab- 
lished — that there is nothing in Scripture to forTAd its 
establishment, where its establishment can be accomplished. 
In the United States of America a branch of the reform- 
ed Catholic Church is existing, and I am happy to say 



AND THE ESTABLISHMENT. 



33 



flourishing, under the government of many orthodox Bish- 
ops. Now, this Church is not recognized by the State. 
It is not estabhshed. But we do not object to it on that 
account. We acknowledge it to be a true and most pure 
branch of the Church of Christ, and we watch with 
fraternal affection its pre-eminence and its progress. We 
do not, therefore, say that the Church must be estabhshed 
— the only question, I repeat, is whether, where we find it 
allied, as in this country it is, with the State, there is 
any thing unlawful in such alliance. And again I say 
that the onus prohandi lies with the adversary. Where, 
I ask, is there any thing that condemns the establish- 
ment of the Church of Christ as the national religion? 
I am, of course, aware that reference is sometimes made 
to the eighteenth chapter of St. John's Gospel, where 
our Lord declares. My kingdom is not of this ivorld : but 
that, I conceive, is always done for the sake more of popu- 
lar declamation than of solid argument. For it is clear, 
from the context, that this passage cannot be made to 
say any thing, either one way or the other, with respect 
to a national establishment. It had been represented to 
Pontius Pilate that the Lord Jesus, by claiming to be a 
king, was an enemy to Caesar. In order to ascertain the 
truth of this accusation, the Eoman governor demanded of 
our Lord, Art thou the King of the Jews? In answering in 
the affirmative, the blessed Jesus, to guard against miscon- 
ception, adds : — My kingdom is not of this worlds if my 
kingdom were of this worlds then would m.y servants fight, 
that I should not he delivered to the Jews ; hut now my king- 
dom is not from hence^ It is difficult to force any other 
meaning from this passage, considered as an answer to 
Pilate's question, than this: "I am a king, but not such a 
king as Csesar need to fear ; in proof that I do not wish to 

^ John, xviii. 36. 



34 



THE CHURCH 



dethrone him. or to interfere with the powers that be, I refer 
to the fact tliat I have not commanded my servants to fight 
for me." 

If to establish — ay, or to ?//i-estabhsh — the Church, we 
were to have recourse to weapons of carnal warfare and to 
seek a revohition, as the Presbyterians did in the reign of 
Charles the First, I can then understand how we might 
violate the principle implied in this text; but it is impossible 
to conceive how, by any process of sophistry it can be inter- 
preted as condemnino; the civil magistrate when he ofters, or 
the ecclesiastical magistrate when he accepts, an alliance 
between Church and State for the purpose of benefiting those 
who are the subjects of both. At all events, it is not from 
one text of very doubtful meaning that a wise man will start 
such an objection as this ; he will rather feel surprise, if the 
establishing of the Church as a national religion be so heinous 
an offence as some persons would represent, that our Lord did 
not condemn it in the very strongest terms. For we know 
tkat, among the J ews, the State and the Church were closely 
united ; that the Jevrish Church was as much established in 
Palestine as the Christian Church is in England: and that 
moreover, this union between Church and State was insti- 
tuted by God himself. The Apostles, therefore, could not have 
considered an established religion as a thing, in itself, unlaw- 
ful. That they themselves made no attempt to establish 
Christianity is most true ; but then it is to be remembered 
that no nations were, at that period, converted. "What 
would have been their conduct had an opportunity offered of 
grafting Christianity upon the civil institutions of the heathen 
world neither we nor our opponents can decide. Their 
example, therefore, can be urged by neither party, since they 
had no opportunity of acting. 

And now, having seen that there is nothing to be urged 
from Scripture by the religionist against a union with the 



AND THE ESTABLISHMENT. 



35 



civil power, it only remains to consider what are the advan^ 
tages of the union. Whatever may be the theories of the 
political economist of the present daj^ the ancient lawgivers 
considered religion to be of such importance, as bearing 
even on the temporal welfare of society, that they actually 
preferred a false religion to none. It was the remark of a 
celebrated historian, that Rome was indebted for her glory 
to the prevalence, in her best days, of superstition — mean- 
ing by superstition a feeling of religion, though directed to a 
wrong object.'^ But superstition is like a statue too massive 
for the pedestal on which it is placed ; and, as civilization 
advances, it soon falls into ruin. Its absurdities are detected, 
and the conclusion is hastily drawn that because one system 
of religion is proved to be false, no system of religion can be 
proved to be true. Among the heathens, therefore, a religious 
feeling never existed, for any great length of time, as an influen- 
tial principle. And the consequence was that in the heathen 
world that greatest of all earthly blessings, civil liberty was 

^Polybius, 1. 6. p. 497. The whole passage is curious: — "The 
greatest advantage," says he, ''which the Roman government seems to 
have over other states, is in the opinion pubhcly entertained by them 
about the gods ; and that very thing which is decried by other mortals 
sustained the Republic of Rome — I mean, superstition: — for this was 
carried by them to such a height, and introduced so effectually both into 
the private lives of the citizens and the public affairs of the city, that one 
cannot help being surprised at it." " It was not without great prudence 
and foresight that the ancients took care to instil into them these notions 
of the gods and infernal punishments^ which the moderns, on the other 
hand, are now rashly and absurdly endeavoring to extirpate." How 
would this historian have felt had he known of a religion adapted 
equally to the wants of the most learned philosopher and the most un- 
lettered peasant, in which a Newton and a cottager may find subjects 
for study, in which, to use the expression of one of the Fathers, while 
there are shallows which a lamb may ford, there are depths where an 
elephant must swim ! Christianity, so far as religion is concerned, ha^ 



THE CHURCH 



utterly unknown. For real freedom we are indebted to Christi- 
anity, which alone could make religion to be not an idle theory, 
but an abiding conviction. By an armed ohgarchy, the 
greater part of the operatives in the heathen world were kept 
in a state of slavery, the abolition of which was a subject on 
which the most benevolent of philosophers could scarcely 
dare to dream. How impossible it is for a society of men. 
with equal rights, to exist without the restraints of religion, 
may be seen in what took place in France during the first 
revolution. Religion being regarded as a thing of naught, 
the wild passions of men burst forth in all their ferocity: i^ie 
land was fall cf Hood, and : - -.:■:'■> rV.'. of pervcrscness : 
and. the experiment having been made, even Infidels bore 
testimony to the blessings — I mean the temporal blessings — 
of Christianity, by re-establishing its institutions, though, 
judicially blind themselves, they embraced not its doctrines. 
And the reason of this is obvious : the statesman can only 
legislate for society in the mass: it is the minister of religion 
who applies to individual cases those principles upon which 
all sound legislation is founded: while the former looks to 
the ba]'e fact, the latter is probing the motive : while the 
human lawgiver can only say. T'^^'U i^iod^ no^ s:taL it is the 
Divine lawgiver who adds. T/;-^/ c-'-rcr; the law of 

the land can only guard against the effects of passion : to 
subdue the passions themselves belongs to divine grace : the 
civil magistrate can do little more than become a terror to 

utterly aboli-hed the doctr'ne of expediency, and in it? stead established 
tj-iith as the sole c'.,;ici \'.h--h u:e r-h-.hj::ist is to have in view, This 
is a bicssed a::d a giorious ihcr. Bur ic s-ems irrational to fail into 
the or-'pL.-ire eXLren:e ; and because the heati^en pihiosophers supported 
a faise r-i:_:'.':: thr-'.:^h ex e.i ;t-:;cy. n-jt to observe tne tendency of the 
true rengiei!:. v.hiie aiiLrain. iTece ibr the renovation of the hearts of 
individuals, to center at tne same time, indirectly, the most important 
temporal benents on society. 



AND THE ESTABLISHMENT. 



37 



the evil doer: the rewards of the humble and the righteous are 
administered by that faith which reahzes the joys of eternity 
and secures, at the time present, the peace which passeth all 
understanding ; laws of perfect obligation fail under the 
province of the legislature ; those higher laws of imperfect 
obligation are enforced by the Church: the civil authorities 
may govern man, as a selfish, money-getting, ambitious 
creature; it is Christianity alone which can foster and bring 
to maturity the generous principles of courtesy, benevolence, 
and charity, which can elevate us to all that is high and 
honourable in sentiment, all that is disinterested in conduct, 
and amiable in feeling. 

It is true that, to a certain extent, much of this might be 
accomplished even though the Church were not established. 
ReHgion would still have its influence. I will go even further, 
and add that, so far as regards those who are Churchmen in 
deed and in truths the Church itself would be benefitted by 
a separation from the State : for she would regain those 
undoubted rights from which, for the sake of harmony, she 
now recedes — the right, for instance, of legislating for her- 
self on all occasions, and of electing Bishops without the 
interference of the civil power. The question with the legis- 
lator is not whether the Church would do much good, though 
unconnected with the State, but whether, by an alliance 
therewith, she cannot do mere good: and the question with 
the Churchman is, whether, for placing in abeyance some of 
its spiritual rights, the Church does not receive compensa- 
tion by the indirect influence it is enabled to exert. The 
Church may be less free, but is it not more efficient ? — The 
Church may be unduly controlled in the exercise of its 
authority over its own members, but does it not possess 
greater means of purifying society? — and to purify society, 
to act as the salt of the earth, is one of the purposes for 
which the Church was instituted. It is not, indeed, as 
4 



38 



THE CHURCH 



churclimen but as patriots that we deprecate the desecration 
of the State ; that is to say, we deprecate it for the sake, not 
of those that are within the pale, but of those that are with- 
out; we deprecate it, not because the Church would be a 
less efficient minister of grace to the faithful, if, driven from 
her glorious cathedrals, she summoned her children around 
her in the upper room of a hired house, or the caves of the 
desert; but because she would be a less effectual preacher of 
morality to the unenlightened and the unbeliever. Her voice 
would still be the voice of a charmer when heard, but it 
would not reach so far. When men are once awakened to a 
vital sense of religion, when its blessings, its holy consola- 
tions, and heavenly joys, have been kindled in the heart, they 
need not an establishment, for they will never be without the 
ordinances and sacraments of the Church from whence 
those blessings flow. but. vrere there no establishment, how 
would it fare with those who, not knowing its consolations, 
are naturally averse from its restraints ? The strong would 
have their meat; but how vrould the babes be supplied with 
milk? To those who truly believe, heautiful will he the feet 
oj them that ^rr each the Gosjjel of jjeo.ce, and oring glad tidings 
of good things : but concerning others we may ask ho'r 
they coll on Hi in in v:honi they hare not helieved? — Ano. 
shall they lelitce in Him of whom they have notheonrdl — And 
how siiaU tliey hear icitJiout a jnnreacher :--~An : : : ifv 

■preach excejjt they he sent? Will individual z- - ::;u.ice ? — 
Alas ! the zeal of individuals soon waxes cold when all cause of 
opposition is removed. It is, at all events, hard to conceive 
why the case should be different with us from what it is in 
the United States of America. There, in the towns and 
cities, where religion is regarded as a luxury, Churches and 
Chapels abound. But, in the rural districts, the population 
is either utterly destitute of pastoral supervision, or depends, 
for the sacraments and for spiritual edification, on the visits, 
few and far between, of some chance missionary. And so it 



AND THE ESTABLISHMENT. 



39 



was in the primitive ages before the Church obtained the coun- 
tenance and support of the civil government; rehgion flour- 
ished in the towns, but in the villages the inhabitants con- 
tinued to be Heathens, and hence an Infidel and a Pagan be- 
cmne convertible terms. In, short, where there is no national 
establishment, they who require instruction least receive it 
most, and thej who require it most have it not at all. And 
therefore, whether we look at the fact with the eye of the 
legislator or of the Christian, the circumstance of stationing 
a man of education, respectability, and religion, in each parish, 
where the inhabitants are too poor to support, or too igno- 
rant to desire, an instructor, is an advantage to the country, 
which will only then be properly appreciated when it is lost. 

On the other hand, the position of our higher ecclesiastics 
as the compeers of the royal and great, if it affect not all the 
good we could desire, certainly gives to English society that 
moral tone which is the glory of our country. By inter- 
course with the good, the irreligious learn to respect virtue, 
and become less immoral than they would otherwise be ; for 
it is impossible to be in the midst of odours without bearing 
away some portion of their fragrance. Meantime, their 
children are brought up not only without feelings of hostility 
to religion, but even with a due regard for its decencies if 
not for its duties. Thus the way is prepared before the 
preacher by our national institutions, which bring religion 
under the notice of many who would not otherwise have be- 
stowed a single thought on the subject. Religion is thrust, 
as it were, into every one's face ; and he must be pertina- 
ciously negligent and wilfully blind who does not examine 
into its claims. 

It is to the circumstance that we have in this country an 
established Church, which, without requiring implicit faith 
in its dogmas, demands investigation from all its subjects 
»-«-an establishment which forces men to inquiry, while in- 



40 



THE CHL'RCH 



quiry leads to conviction — it is to this circumstance that Tve 
may attribute the gratifying fact that many and most of those 
illustrious men, who for intehectual acquirements, are the 
ornaments of their native land, are ever the foremost to bow 
the knee at the name of .Jesus, and to vindicate the ways of 
God to man. But, whatever may be thought of these con- 
siderations — important ones in the estimation of a Christian 
— the question, at the present time and in this country, is 
not as to the tdtahlishing of the Church, but as to the un- 
establishiug of it. And they who have before their eyes 
either the fear of God or the love of man. will tremble at the 
responsibility they incur in helping to break up the old paths, 
lest of those they turn adrift into the highway there should 
be some — and doubtless there would be many — who. from 
the tendency of human nature to rush into opposite extremes, 
would plunge headlong into the abyss of Infidelity and 
Atheism, and thus involve the nation in all the curses de- 
denounced upon an apostate people. To dissolve the reli- 
gious establishmcDt of this country would be, as it were, to 
tear the sun from the centre of our social system. 

It is, I know, the custom of the adversary to attribute to 
the existence of an establishment the evils of sectarianism. 
But to argue thus is to argue from hypothesis and not from 
fact. For the fact is, that, in America, where no establish- 
ment is recognized by the State, sectarianism rages with a 
far more bitter spirit than it does in England.^ Sectarian- 

<^ There are some yevy sensible remarks on this subject — remarks the 
more valuable from being made by a man of the wond — at the con- 
clusion of 'Mr. Hamilton's interesting volumes on Men and Manners 
in America." Having stated that in towns there is no apparent defi- 
ciency of religiun, the author observes : — " In the country, however, this 
is not the case. These dilierences of religion rend the country into 
shreds and patches, vaning in every thing of colour, form, and texture. 
In a village, the population of which is bai^ely sufficient to fill one Chijrch 



AND THE ESTABLISHMENT. 



41 



ism ever has existed, and, till a mighty change come over 
the spirit of the world, it ever will exist. And, therefore, 
the wise man will not engage in any chimerical project for 
conciliating all sects; his endeavour will be to moderate the 
rancour of the sectarian spirit. By an establishment one 
grand cause of dispute is removed. In every parish the first 
place is pre-occupied ; and this renders one party desirous of 
peace. It is very seldom that the Clergyman of the parish 
feels it to be worth his while to enter into controversy with 
the dissenting teacher. He knows his superiority, and that 
he has nothing to gain by the contest. Consequently, while 
local controversies in America are many, and fierce, and pro- 
longed, in England they are few, and soon subside. In an 
establishment there is less of that kind of zeal which the 
ignorant admire, but which is, in truth, only party spirit; but 
there is more of, 

and support one Clerg^'man, the inhabitants are either forced to want 
religious ministration altogether, or the followers of different sects must 
agree upon some compromise, by which each yields up some portion of 
his creed to satisty the objections of hi- neighbour. This breeds argu- 
ment, dispute, and bitterness of feeling. The Socinian will not object 
to an Arian Clergyman, but declines to have any thing to do with a sup- 
porter of the Trir.ity. The Caivinist will consent to tolerate the doctrine 
of free agency, if combined with tnat of absolute and irrespective de- 
crees. The Baptist may give up the assertion of some favourite dogmas, 
but clings to adult baptism as a sine qua non. And thus with other 
sects. But who is to inculcate such a jumble of discrepant and irrecon- 
cilable doctrine ? No man can shape his doctrine according to the anom- 
alous and piebald creed prescribed by such a congregation, and the prac- 
tical result is that some one sect becomes victorious for a time ; jealous- 
ies deepen into antipathies ; and what is called an ovposition church 
probably springs up in the village. The rival Clergymen attack each 
other from the pulpit: newspapers are enlisted on either side, and 
religious warfare is waged with the bitterness, if not the learning, which 
has distinguished the controversies of abler polemics." 

4* 



42 



THE CHURCH 



Pure religion breathing household laws.'^ 

The very fact of the ministry being provided for, and having 
no jpecuniary interest in making proselytes, tends to peace. 
One influential party is withdrawn from the scene of com- 
bat : and even the dissenting sects enjoy the sunshine which 
the establishment diffuses, though, like the blind, they distin- 
guish not the light from which it iiows. For, having a com- 
mon interest in preventing the establishment from exceeding 
the powers to w^hich it is legally entitled, their hostility to 
one another, w^hich, in the United States, is often disgrace- 
ful to the very name of Christianity, is modified. Another 
advantage of an establishment is that, although it may be 
impossible to make all men think ahke, yet it indirectly leads 
if not to uniformity yet to similarity of doctrine. The doc- 
trines and practices of the establishment are fixed: and thus 
it stands a warning against the excesses of rival sects, "while 
it affords a model according to which those sects, when 
correcting their abuses, Yvall to a certain extent shape them- 
selves. Every one must have observed that, in manner, in 
dress, even in the title he assumes, the dissenting teacher 
wishes to appear like the Clergyman ; and this he would not 
do unless he were accustomed in weightier matters to look 
up to the Church with a degree of respect, which he will 
not, perhaps, acknowledge even to himself. The conse- 
quence of this is, that, although we have sects of every sort 
and grade in this country, yet the extremes of "Unitarian- 
ism," and Fanaticism in its wildest state, are far less preva- 
lent here than in the United States. Our sects come much 
nearer to the golden mean ; for the establishment, to which 
all eyes are turned, is alwa^^s indirectly infusing some slight 
portion of caloric into the cold system of the "Unitarian," 
while she tempers the fiery zeal of the Fanatic. The opera- 
tion, also, of dissenting sects upon the establishment is not 



AND THE ESTABLISHMENT. 



43 



without benefit, since it prevents the rehgious atmosphere 
from stagnating. Sectarianism is not, therefore, an unmixed 
evil ; or, if it be, I repeat, it is not an evil to be cured by 
human means. To expect to model an establishment, so as 
to please all parties, is to indulge in an amiable but chimerical 
theory. The object of the practical man will be, not to 
attempt the extirpation of sectarianism, but simply to remedy 
its evils. He will not seek to add to our num^bers by con- 
cession of principles ; he will not seek to conciHate a few 
wavering non-conformists by disgusting tlie conformist; but 
his object will be to preserve concord within the sanctuary, 
and by exhibiting her services in all the fair beauty of holi- 
ness, to make men enamoured of the Church, 

To what I have said of the tendency of an establishment 
to preserve peace among religionists, the acrimonious spirit 
evinced against the Church at the present time is no contra- 
diction. The violence of the sectarian is to be attributed to 
very peculiar political circumstances, on which it does not 
become me to dilate in this place. And what, let me ask, 
what would be the state of the country, at the pi^esent 
moment, if the combined attack of dissenters and infidels — 
unhallowed combination I— were met with the spirit in which 
it is made ? — AYhat would be the state of the country, if the 
Clergy of England, instead of acting with the temper of Chris- 
tians and the deportment of gentlemen, had been habituated 
to those arts of personal altercation and controversy, which 
are too often found to prevail where no establishment exists ? 

It is, indeed, with complacency that I regard the conduct 
of the vast majority of that sacred order to which I have the 
happiness to belong, under a system of misrepresentation, 
calumny, and moral persecution, more hard to bear than 
tortures or death. And while we look for a recompense 
elsewhere, through the merits of a crucified Saviour, it is 
surely a pardonable weakness to feel some satisfaction in the 



44 



THE CHURCH 



thought that. when, in a future age, the historian is recount- 
ing the acts of the present generation, he will tell of a Clergy 
who, if they were, like the Apostles from whom they claim to 
descend, misrepresented as the filth of the earth and the off- 
scouring of toll tilings, yet so far trod in theh- Master's foot- 
steps that, being reviled, they learned to bless, being perse- 
cuted, they learned to suiter : being defamed, they learned to 
entreat. 

Before I conclude. I must just advert to the system adopt- 
ed in some of the States of America, where every person is 
obliged to contribute towards the support of religion, while 
it is left to his choice to decide upon the sect on which his 
bounty shall be conferred. And what is the consequence ? 
The prevalence in those States of what is called -'Unita- 
rianism." He who must support some sect, and yet is in- 
ditlerent alike to all religion, chooses that form, of course, 
which is nearest to no religion, and remains for ever ice- 
bound under that petrifying system of theology — that apol- 
ogy for Christianity — ^ which can teach — what he knew 
before — ^that honesty is the best policy, but can never warm 
the imagination or amend the heart. For advancement, for 
growth in grace, no opportunity is afforded. If I wish to 
prove the excellency of the contrary system — if I wish to 
prove the advantage, not only of a national religious estab- 
lishment, but of establishing the true Church — ^it is not to 
argument that I would resort — I should appeal to the expe- 
rience of those whom I address. Some there are — ^the 
happiest of their kind — who. under any circumstance, would 
have belonged to the Church of their Crod. But, of the 
hundreds — I may say the thousands — who worship in this 
sanctuary, let me ask what lirst brought the generality with- 
in consecrated walls ? They came because, through the 
influence of an establishment a religious atmosphere being 
created around, it is respectable to attend a place of wor- 



AND THE ESTABLISHMENT. 



45 



ship; and because such being the case, and not being contro- 
versiaUsts, they preferred to any other the place provided 
for them by the institutions of their Country. Unworthy 
motives! And yet, my brethren, what has been the conse- 
quence ? If there had been no establishment, half of those 
whom I see before me would have remained indifferent to 
the high privileges and blessings of Christianity; but now — 
though brought here first, perhaps, from insufficient motives 
— you have become regular worshippers ; gradually, from 
being mere formalists, you have brought the principles of re- 
ligion to bear on your general conduct; gradually, from con- 
sidering prayer to be a disagreeable though a necessary duty, 
you have learned to feel that communion with -the Father of 
your spirits is a great, a glorious, a holy, a delightful privilege; 
gradually, you have been led from your kneelings in the pew 
to the rails of the altar, and there, in the Sacrament of your 
Saviour's Body and Blood, you have become partakers of the 
benefits of His passion. To you, then, my beloved brethren, 
to you I need no longer speak of the advantages of such an 
establishment as that, which, by the piety of your ancestors, 
and the wisdom of the Constitution, still consecrates your 
native land — your hearts have already thanked your God for 
that you were born in a country not only where religion is 
established, but where the system established is that which 
was originally instituted by the Apostles, Jesus Christ Him- 
self being the chief corner-stone — that which you can prove 
to be the Church of the living God, the jpillar and the ground 
of the truth. 

May we, then, my brethren, be prepared, as patriots, to 
uphold the establishmicnt of the Church in this country ; 
while, as churchmen, we are resgjiute, to endure all things 
rather than sacrifice to any notions of expediency her Catho- 
lic doctrines or her essential discipline in the threefold order 
of the ministry. Let our ark be supported, but — warned by 



46 THE CHURCH AND THE ESTABLISHMENT. 



the blood of Uzzah — not by unlialloWed means — not by 
unsanctioned concessions. Better to sacrifice an establish- 
ment at once than to compromise the Church. For the 
Church let us be prepared to suffer any thing and every thing 
which the malice of the devil may suggest, or the ingenuity 
of man invent. At the same time let us bear in mind that 
he will never die the death of a martyr who does not strive 
to live the life of a saint, for the patience of the one, and the 
resolution of the other, proceed from one and the self-same 
spirit. 



SERMON III. 

(!Eatl}olux0m of tl)t ^riQixtan €\)nvt\} 

AND ITS BRANCHES. 



Whether one member suffer all the members suffer with it, or one 
member be honored all the members rejoice with it. Now ye are the 
body of Christ and members in particular. — 1 Cor. xii. 26, 27. 

Deeply impressed with the importance of the solemn 
office for the celebration of which we are this day assembled, 
and equally aware of my own un worthiness, as a simple 
Presbyter, to discuss the great questions which naturally 
arise out of it in the presence of so many right reverend Fa- 
thers of the Church, it is with sincere humility and diffi.dence 
that I take upon me a duty, to the performance of which I am 
capable of bringing little m.ore than that fervent zeal which 
such an event is calculated to call forth in the breast of every 
true servant of our holy Catholic Church. Heartily, how- 
ever, as humbly 1 pray unto Him "who worketh great mar- 
vels," to send down upon this whole congregation such a 
portion of the "healthful spirit of His grace," as may sup- 
ply all deficiencies on the part of the creature, and bring 
our designs and labours to a happy conclusion, to the honour 
and glory of the Creator. 

In contemplating a measure which forcibly brings back to 
our recollection the primitive periods of the Church of Christ, 
and awakens the memory of those events which have marked 
its career from the first mission of the Apostles, down to the 
present hour, we are necessarily reminded of the distin- 



43 



THE CATHOLICISM OF THE 



guishing features by which, and by which alone, the true 
apostolic and Catholic character of it may be traced. 

In the regular procession of events, first principles too 
frequently become obscured, or are only referred to, as they 
partially appear to justify a latitude of interpretation. In 
an age of professing liberality especially, men are apt to be 
fascinated by words, and to merge the distinctive character, 
— to lose sight, feature by feature, of truth itself — in the 
prevailing mode of generalizing principles, as well as systems. 
Thus by an error, venial perhaps as far as concerns the 
ignorant multitude, but criminal in those who either through 
prejudice, or for the purpose of deluding others, foster and 
extend it,-^ — every sect, every shade and denomination of dis- 
sent or departure from the institutions of the Apostles and 
the primitive Church, are comprehended equally with the 
most rigid and conscientious adherence to them, under the 
general head and title of the Catholic Church. 

In such an assembly as this, I need not insist upon the im- 
propriety, — to use no harsher term — of such a general classi- 
fication : but it may not be considered irrelevant, if in dis- 
cussing the merits of our present undertaking, in order to 
anticipate misunderstanding, and to guard against misrepre- 
sentation, we explain distinctly and clearly what we mean 
by the Catholic Church ; and hence endeavour to shew how 
perfectly in accordance with its principles and objects, is 
the purpose now contemplated by the pious and venerable 
governors of this pure and legitimate branch of it. 

That the Church of Rome has unjustly arrogated to herself 
an exclusive claim to the title of Catholic — that name so dear 
to all who are imbued with the love of primitive Christianity 
— has been too satisfactorily proved by a succession of the 
ablest divines, and, indeed, is too self-evident, to need any 
discussion upon the present occasion. We shall rather direct 
our observations against the error, not only of those who 



ANGLICAN CHURCH AND ITS BRANCHES. 49 



dissent from our apostolic Church, but even of too many 
careless professors within its pale — who, ignorant or regard- 
less of the primitive institutions of Christianity — the restora- 
tion to which was the object of our Reformation, — content 
themselves with a literal interpretation of this designation of 
the one true Church, and thus predicate it indiscriminately 
of all believers. 

That their principle of interpretation is erroneous, a httle 
consideration will serve to shew. Ascertaining KadoXiKog 
to mean universal, they demand where is to be found a uni- 
versal Church. They perceive the disagreement which 
exists with respect both to doctrines and ceremonies among 
the various religious establishments throughout the world, 
and finding, strictly speaking, no satisfactory answer to the 
question, they, at once, assume the fact, that under the 
general title of the Catholic Church, must necessarily be 
included every sect and denomination of professing Chris- 
tians, however different in doctrine, in discipline or even in 
faith, from the primitive Church. But is this a just or legiti- 
mate mode of interpretation? Is it the mode of interpreta- 
tion, with which any one who comes to the consideration of 
the subject will be satisfied? If in the study of literature, 
the philosophy, or the political economy of the ancients, we 
were to meet with a technical expression or a term of art, 
should we rest contented with the imperfect notions con- 
veyed by either, in the first and literal sense ? Should we 
not rather refer to the writings of the poet, the philosopher 
and the politician, and adopt the term, whether agreeable or 
not to its strict etymological signification, in the precise sense 
to which it had been restricted by them ? This surely is 
consonant with every principle applicable to the investiga- 
tion of truth, and must, in justice be adopted in analyzing 
any question connected with the first and greatest of all 
truths — "the reason of the faith which is in us." 
5 



50 



THE CATHOLICISM OF THE 



When, therefore, we adopt and daily repeat the creed of 
the early Christians, we are surely bound to ascertain not 
only the meaning of their words, but the precise sense in 
which they were used, and in which those holy Fathers 
intended that we should receive them. 

By this test, then, we are prepared to abide ; and we may, 
without presumption, challenge the opponents of our inter- 
pretation to point out one instance in which the term Catho- 
lic is applied by the ancients in the indefinite and indiscrimi- 
nate manner for which they contend. They will invariably 
find it used, for a purpose directly opposed to that which tliey 
profess. They will find it used, to speak logically, as a word 
of the second intention, to distinguish the one true and apos- 
lolic Church — the Church which was established at Jeru- 
salem by the preaching of St. Peter, and existing through 
all ages the same, by the succession of its Bishops — from 
the various sects, heresies, and schisms which even then 
brought scandal upon the name of Christians. " Christianus 
miki nomen, Catholicus cognomen,^^ the former to distinguish 
him from the heathen, the latter from the heretics, was the 
motto not of Pacian alone, but of every orthodox member 
of the Church. 

If earlier than the age of Irenaeus the distinction is not so 
clearly marked, it is only because the errors of the first and 
the former part of the second century, were so gross in their 
nature that they could scarcely lay claim to the common 
term of Christian, and that, consequently, the line of de- 
markation between Churchman and Heretic was too clearly 
ascertained to require that nice distinction which afterwards 
became necessary when Schism as well as Heresy divided the 
believers in the name of Christ. But to the writings of Ire- 
n&eus, Tertullian, and St. Cyprian, — the polar star of the 
Ecclesiastical Antiquary, — we might, with safety, appeal, 
for the fullest proof of our assertion; were it not amply 



ANGLICAN CHURCH AND ITS BRANCHES. 



51 



sufficient for the object we have in view to ascertain the 
meaning which was attached to the term by those who first 
adopted it in the Creed. 

Although the article concerning the Catholic Church had 
been inserted in many of the Oriental Creeds at the begin- 
ning of the fourth century, and although the term itself had 
been applied to the Church, as well shall presently see, from 
the apostolic age ; it did not form part of any of those Creeds 
which are retained by us, until the Council of Constantinople 
added it to the Nicene. Now it would be perfectly fair to in- 
fer that the very circumstance of its insertion in the Creed is 
sufficient, if not to support our argument, at least, to invali- 
date that to which we are opposed. The design of a Creed 
is not the expression of all that we believe, hut the profession 
of certain truths which, although denied by some, are main- 
tained by us. There is, consequently an antithesis to every 
article. We profess to believe in God the Father, because 
the Pagan rejects Him ; in God the Son, because the Arian 
blasphemes him; in God the Holy Ghost, because His perso- 
nality is denied by the Macedonian. Now, if in the pro- 
fession of belief in the existence of the Catholic Church, the 
primitive Christians had intended nothing further than the 
acknowledgment of the existence of large masses of believers 
in the name of Christ, scattered over the face of the earth, 
no one in his senses would have objected to that which was 
self-evident. To have denied it, would have involved an 
absurdity too gross for the most weak and illiterate of man- 
kind to have been guilty of ; and to have inserted the article 
in the creed, would, in consequence, have been, at least a 
work of supererogation. But if, on tbe other hand, they 
intended, as we maintain, to distinguish by that title the true 
and Apostolic Church from the different sects of Schisma- 
tics and Heretics ; then they asserted a fact, against which 
those sects would vigorously contend, and then, also, we can 



52 



THE CATHOLICISxM OF THE 



readily account for its adoption in the various Symbols or 
Creeds of the Church. 

But we are not driven to the necessity of drawing our 
conclusion by inference, or from merely general views of 
the subject. The article now under consideration we repeat 
was first added to the Creed of Xice, by the Council of Con- 
stantinople.^ The question, then, is — what was the idea 
which the Constantinopolitan Fathers intended to convey by 
the term. This may be answered at once if the authenticity 
of the seventh Canon of that Council be admitted, and I trust 
I do not presume too far in affirming that the arguments in 
its favour are of equal strength, at least with those of its 
opponents. Now, these Fathers in their seventh Canon 
make a manifest distinction, between the various Schismatics 
and Heretics, and " the Catholic and Apostolic Church of 
God," by the appointment of particular ceremonies to be 
observed by the former upon their admission into this 
Church,— of which, had they previously been members, 
there would have been no necessity. And let it be particu- 
larly observed that among the Schismatics specified in the 
seventh Canon, and alluded to as being uitliout the pale of the 
Catholic Church, are the Novatians, — the Novatians who 
differed less from the Church the?i, than any one sect, 
whether Calvinistic or Lutheran, differs from it Jioic, — who 

^The reader is requested to bear in mind, that the clauses which in 
our Prayer Books succeed the mention of the Holy Ghost, were not 
originally in the yicene Creed, but added to it, as stated in the text, at 
the Council of Constantinople, in the year 381. " It is sometimes main- 
tained that this alteration was made not at the general Council, but at 
one holden imm.ediately afterwards at the same place. Without enter- 
ing into controversy upon this subject, it is sufficient to observe, that — 
even supposing this to be the case, — since it is agreed on all hands that 
the same Fathers, (or at all events, the triumphant majority of the pre- 
vious Council;) acted in both, our argument will not be affected by it. 



ANGLICAN CHURCH AND ITS BRANCHES. 



53 



were, in faith Homo-ousians, and in doctrine Episcopalians. 
Their only distinguishing characteristic was the uncompro- 
mising rigour of their discipline : so that if the Novatians 
were not considered as members of the Catholic Church, to 
that high privilege no other sect surely could prefer a claim. 

But even admitting the arguments against the authenticity 
of this Canon to be valid, we are still at no loss to discover 
the intention of the Constantinopolitau Fathers, since they 
admitted the Creed and Decrees of the Council of Nice. For 
although the Xicene Fathers did not insert it as an article of 
faith, they nevertheless not only applied the term Catholic to 
the one true Church, in contradistinction to the assemblies of 
the Heretics, but actually made use of it, in this sense, at the 
conclusion of their Creed. The original Nicene Creed, as 
is well known, concludes with an anathema against the 
Arians, in the name of '-the holy Catholic and Apostolic 
Church :" of which Church, by a reference to their eighth 
Canon, it will plainly appear they did not consider either 
Heretics or Schismatics to be members; since that Canon 
was expressly framed to legislate for those of the Puritan or 
Novatian Clergy who might come over to the Catholic 

ChuTCil , ' rrepi nov ovjiJ.aCovrcov [.uv tavrovg KaUarjOvg r:j~z. -poc£p\^oij.zvcov 

c£ TTj KaOoyiKi;/ Ka, A-o-ro'>LKr, zKK^n'y^o., manifestSv implying that 
they did not previously belong to it. This is the more re- 
markable, since the validity of the orders of these Xovatian 
Clergy — who had preserved the episcopal succession, and 
had among them Bishops regularly consecrated. — is. by im- 
plication in this very canon acknowledged. 

Enough I trust has been said to establish the sense in 
which the term Catholic^ was by the compilers of the Creed 
applied to the Apostolic Church of our blessed Lord and 
Saviour. It was evidently used, I repeat, as a word of the 
second intention to distinguish the true Church from the 
heretical and schismatical sects. Adopting, therefore, the 
5* 



54 



THE CATHOLICISM OF THE 



term in its legitimate and restricted sense, we might now, if 
the time permitted, enter upon a curious and interesting in- 
quiry concerning its origin. It may be said, indeed, that 
upon this point nothing can be asserted with any degree of 
certainty. The testimony of the Fathers is, no doubt, va- 
rious and conflicting. The later Fathers, and particularly 
St. Augustin, while applying the term in the same restricted 
sense with ourselves, appear to have believed that it was 
originally given because "the CatJwlic Church was not like 
the Churches of the heretics confined to certain places and 
provinces, but enlarged by the splendor of one faith, from the 
rising up of the sun, to the going down of the same."^ But 
whether such was its original signification may admit of a 
doubt. The earliest writer by whom the w^ord has been used 
is Ignatius the Apostolic Bishop of Antioch. It occurs, 
also, twice in the Epistle of the Church of Smyrna upon 
the martyrdom of Polycaru, their venerable Prelate. That 
neither the Church nor Christianity was at that period the 
universal religion must be apparent to every one. The 
name, therefore, must either have been given prophetically, 
purporting that the one true Church would eventually be the 
universal cue, — or might, moi'e probably, have been adopted 
to distinguish the Christian Church from the Jewish ; the 
one having been confined to a single chosen nation, while 
the other was destined to spread throughout all the nations 
of the world. When we consider the disputes which were 
eai'ly prevpJent between the Gentile converts and the Judaiz- 
ing Christians, we can easily conceive the readiness with 
which the former would adopt a title which proclaimed their 
liberty, as the sons of God. 

But whatever may have been the origin of the word, the 
manner in which it was apphed by the Fathers of the 



^ August. Tom= 10 Serrn. de Temp. 



ANGLICAN CHURCH AND ITS BRANCHES. 



55 



Church, and the purpose for which it was used, are palpable 
and clear — upon the whole, then, I conclude, according to 
my first position, that, in adopting the Creed of the ancients 
we are bound to interpret the articles in the sense in which 
they were understood by them, and thus so receive the arti- 
cle in question, as applicable wholly and exclusively to that 
one Church, which — founded on the day of Pentecost by 
the preaching of St. Peter at .Jerusalem, — is to exist through 
all ages the same, by the succession of its ministers in an 
unbroken line from the Apostolic period. 

As a branch of this Church, the Church of England, (from 
which the Churches of Scotland and of North America have 
derived their succession,) was established: in the middle 
ages it became not a new Church, but corrupted: and in the 
sixteenth century it vras not made a new Church, but it was 
reformed. Our Refornaers gradually and carefully removed 
the corruptions by which it was defaced, and brought it to 
the state in which we find it now. 

Resolute against error, yet cautious of innovation, the 
divines of England consulted Scripture by the light of anti- 
quity. The traditionary comments of the Fathers and the 
authoritative decrees of the four- first general councils were 
a check upon the presumption and too prevailing error of self- 
interpretation. Truth, not the spirit of party animated their 
councils, ^/77^ {'-sprrcSovreg I'.ric v-rocE^Sovreg, was their motto. The 
doctrines which were rejected by tliem had never been the 
doctrines of the primitive Church, and while they scrupu- 
lously abscinded all that was PojjisJi, they tenaciously ad- 
hered to every thing which was Catholic.'' Thus through 

^ As the Bishops both of Scotland and America, have derived their 
succession through the Bishops of England — the former in the reign of 
James I. and Charles II. the latter in that of his late Majesty — they 
have an equal interest in the English Reformation with ourselves. It is 
impossible to trace the history of the English Reformation, without per- 



56 



THE CATHOLICISM OF THE 



their agency, under the guidance of providence, was reform- 
ed that Catholic Church for the high privilege of belonging 

ceiving the strong desire and constant care of the Reformers, throughout, 
to reject every thing Popish and to retain all that was Catholic.''^ To 
give a few, out of the many instances which might be adduced : in the 
articles drawn up by Convocation, in the reign of Henry VIII. and 
signed by the members in 1536, (which was the first real step towards 
the Reformation) "all opinions contrary to the Articles of the Creed 
are condemned, which were of long time past condemned in the Coun- 
cil of Nice, Ephesie, and Chalcedonense, and all others since that 
time in any part consonant to the same!''' In the institution of a Chris- 
tian man, published in 1537, it is declared, in the notes upon the Creed, 
that heterodoxes condemned in the four first general councils, must 
be renounced, and the Creed interpreted agreeably to the sense of Scrip- 
ture and antiquity .''^ In the act for the conformity of prayer and the 
administration of the Sacraments, in the reign of Edward VI. it is ex- 
pressly stated, that the Bishops and Divines wlio had been appointed to 
draw up the reformed Liturgy, "had been directed to have a regard to 
the direction of Scripture, and the usages of the primitive Church." 
Cranmer, who drew up the answer to the rebels of Cornwall and 
Devon, in the same reign, states, "that the practice and belief of the 
Church of England is agreeable to the decisions of the general coun- 
cils,^'' In die act for recalling the liturgic books, the first book of 
Edward is declared "to be agreeable to the order of the primitive 
Churchy In the letter sent by the council to the Lady Mary, a. d. 
1550, (that part which relates to religion having probably been written 
by Archbishop Cranmer, assisted by a greater than Cranmer, Bishop 
Ridley,) it is said, " that all the Articles of the Creed were professed 
both by the Romanists and the Church of England men — that the dif- 
ference lies in the ceremonies, and the use of the Sacraments — that in 
these particulars the English Reformation has recovered the worship to 
the directions of Scripture, and \kiQ,use of the primitive Church.'''' The 
reformed preachers, who from prison addressed Philip and Mary, offered 
to prove their doctrines " by catholic principles and authority, by Scrip- 
ture and- antiquity.^'' Cranmer, at his last trial, and previously to his 
recantation, declared, "that he was not only willing to be determined 



ANGLICAN CHURCH AND ITS BRANCHES. 57 



to which, on bended knees and with uplifted hearts, we 
should pour forth our praises and thanksgivings to the Al- 

by the sense, but to subscribe the very phrases and terms of the ancients 
relating to the Eucharist." Horne, in the conference between the 
Papists and Reformed at Westminster, at the beginning of the reign of 
Queen Elizabeth, asserts : that his party were guided by the practice 
of the Church for the five first centuries.'^'' Elizabeth herself, in her 
reply to the foreign powers who applied to her to receive the ejected 
Bishops, gave as one of her arguments for refusing their request, " that 
no new faith was propagated in England, no religion set up, but that 
which was commanded by our Saviour, and practised by the primitive 
Church, and unanimously approved by the Fathers of antiquity.''^ 1 
shall only further add, that by 1st Eliz. I. what was adjudged to be 
heresy by the four first general councils, is allowed to be so by the 
English statute law. Having thus shewn, from the commencement of 
the Reformation in the reign of Henry VIII. to its consummation in that 
of Queen Elizabeth, that it was merely the design and object of the 
English Reformers., by abscinding the novelties which popery had intro- 
duced; to place the Church in the same situation in which it stood dur- 
ing the primitive ages ; we have only to appeal to history for a most 
triumphant proof of their success. 

It has been the boast of the Roman Catholics, and of late years they 
have upon this ground, appealed with too much success to the feelings 
of the ignorant, that their's is the old Church, and our's the new one. 
That their's is the old Church, when it is compared with the other 
Protestant sects, — with the Presbyterians and Independents, we are 
free to confess, — but that it is not so, when compared with the Church 
of England, has been, and must always be, maintained by every sound 
Churchman. What is a new Church? That which adopts or supports 
novelty of doctrine ; not that which, retaining the Episcopal succession j 
rejects all those doctrines which want the stamp of antiquity. If this 
definition be correct^ we are bold to assert, that our's is the old 
Church — and the Roman Catholic a new one. Every one of 
those peculiar tenets which distinguish them from us is a novelty; 
the charge of novelty we retort upon them. Nothing but impudence 
itself," says Bishop Bull, (Vindication, p. 119,) nothing but impu- 



58 



THE CATHOLICISM OF THE 



mighty '-giver of all good things." We conscientiously 
believe that this Church thus restored to primitive purity, — 



dence :t?c-".^ dares an^.rm that Vie Scriptures teach or t':-. f rimitive 
Church : invige worship, invocation of 5a::::s, r.ie half com- 
munion, prayers in the tongue not understood by those who are required 
to join in them'." and to these we may add transubstantiation, the su- 
premacy of the pope, and the adoration of the host. It was after 
enumera::. : ^' " = : : r:"'- ch the Church of Rome, that Bishop 
Jewell dr j. . ; ; ■ r.e ci his adversaries were able to make 



good a single proposition amongst them all. either by sufficient declara- 
dons of Scripture, or by the testimony of the ancient fathers or coun- 
cils, he wouid give up the contest, and declare himself a proselyte.'" 
His ever men: rab'.e challenge, in which he defied the Papists to 
" brinr o::e suiiiriei.t sentence out of any old catholic doctor or father, 
or out of any old general council, or any one example of the primitive 
Church, in favour of these doctrii^es for the first 600 years''' has 
hitherto been unanswered — ^ because it is unanswerable. We might, at 
the game time, defy the Romanists to shew that we have received any 
doctrine or tenet which was not received by the Catholic Bishops of 
the primirlve Church. We are justified, therefore, in proclaiming in 
the words of Bishop Hall Be it known to all the world, that our 
Church is orJy reformed, or repaired, not made new — there is not 
one stone of a -neir foundation laid by us ; yea, the old walls stand stiU, 
only the overcasting- of those ancient stones with untempered mortar of 
ntic ZTzrf??:;'':/;^. displeaseth us; plainly set aside the corruprions. and 
the Ch":rcl: is the same.'' 

I will or.ly add, that if it be true, as some persons would have us be- 
heve, that tl:e ;ee';;onable doctrines of their Church are no longer 
holden by the pLoman Catholics, all controversy is at an end — all bone 
of contention taken away — let them set aside their corruptions -—let 
them cast on their bor.ds of human superstitions, and the Churches are 
the same. Ti.sr tl:ere would be no backwardness on the part of the 
Church of England, to lend her assistance to any part of the Romish 
Church, which might be ^^nlling to renounce all, or even most of its errors, 
is sufficiently proved by the friendly correspondence which was entered 

* Quoted by Bishop Boil. '•Vindication." p. 



ANGLICAN CHURCH AND ITS BRANCHES. 59 



restored in countries, wherein it is by law established, to the 
state in which it existed in the days of Constantino, — re- 
stored in countries like this*^ and America where it is simply 
tolerated, to the state in which it existed in those still purer 
ages, which boast of a Cyprian, an Irenaeus, an Ignatius, even 
of the Apostles themselves — is that true Catholic Church, 
*' against which," (He whose words shall remain firm, though 
heaven and earth pass away, has declared it) '-the gates of 
hell shall not prevail." 

Under this view if the subject, we shall easily perceive 
our relative position with respect to the leading sects of the 

into, on that subject, between Archbishop "Wake and the historian Du 
Pin.* But the fact is, that their objecUonable doctrines are not re- 
nounced by the great body of the E.onian Catholics ; and it is as absurd, 
as it is useless, to seek to ascertain the doctrines of a Church or Sect, 
from any singular opinions which may be entertained by a few indi- 
viduals, however exalted in station or distinguished in character. By 
the law and the testimony — by their canons and ritual are they known 
— until those be altered, their Church must remain what it was xade at 
the Council of Trent. 

Much as this note has been extended beyond my ori.ginal purjDOse, it 
is impossible to conchide without obser%-ing, that if the design of our 
Reformers in renouncing Popery was to return to true Catholicism, 
and if we are commanded, as we undoubtedly are, by the canons, to 
preach nothing but what is agreeable to the Catholic Fathers, and the 
Ancient Bishops, — they will be the truest and most orthodox Church- 
men, who devote their time to the study, (not of the continental Re- 
formers, of Luther, IMelancthon, or Calvin,) but of primitive Chris- 
tianity — nequaquam hujus temporis consuetudinem, sed veterum Scrip- 
torum auctoritatem sepuentes." — It would have been better perhaps, 
inasmuch as it would have explained the true character of our preten- 
sions, had our Church in Scotland and America assumed the title of 
the Reformed Catholic Church, instead of that by which it is now 
designated — the Episcopal Church. 

* See the Appendix to Mosheim. 
It is to be remembered that this Sermon was preached in Scotland, 



60 



THE CATHOLICISM OF THE 



Reformation on the one hand, and the Homanists on the 
other. To both can we hold out the hand of Christian 
charity, with neither can we enter into entire communion. 
We consider the former in error for having seceded from 
that Church which required reformation, but which we 
were forbidden, as the institution of our Saviour and His 
Apostles, to overthrow ; the latter we regard as a branch of 
that Catholic Church, to which we ourselves belong — but a 
branch so scathed by time and cankered in the sap, that we 
dare not rest upon it our hopes of salvation.® The one, in 
short, we censure for having revolutionized instead of re- 
formed, the other for pertinaciously defending instead of 
correcting errors— unknown to antiquity-— the creatures of 
barbarism, ignorance and superstition. But as long as they 
continue to hold the doctrine of the holy undivided Trinity, 
we regard neither the one nor the other with feelings of se- 
verity. Our fellow Protestants, although on many points 
erroneous, worship the same Father, Son, and Blessed Spirit 
with ourselves, they confide on the merits of the same cruci- 
fied Redeemer; they look for, and will, we trust, through 
His mercy, receive the graces of the Holy Spirit ; if not in all 
their fulness, yet so as to secure the salvation of their souls. 
The same charitable feelings we would extend to the Church 
of Rome. That the Church of Rome, amidst all its errors, 
still retains faith sufficient for salvation — that amidst all its 
corruptions it still cherishes something which is pure- — that 
amidst all its superstitions it still points out to the sinner the 
road of virtue and the path to heaven — that it still can boast 
among its members, many who, however mistaken in their 
doctrines, are to be esteemed for their virtues, and honoured 
for their piety, God forbid that the most devoted Protestant 
should deny. But at the same time with these charitable, 
Christian and liberal sentiments, with respect to other com- 

^ The same may be said of the Greek Church. 



ANGLICAN CHURCH AND ITS BRANCHES. 



61 



munions, our Church has ever united the most uncompromis- 
ing firmness in maintaining the doctrines of its own. We 
have a duty to perform to ourseh^es, and above all to our God, 
paramount to that even which we owe to our neighbour. 
Believing, therefore, according to our previous statement, 
that the Almighty, having in his wisdom instituted one 
Church, (which, for the sake of distinction, has received the 
title of Catholic) intends, through the agency of His crea- 
tures, that it should last for ever — and conscientiously be- 
lieving, through a clear and impartial interpretation of the 
Gospel commission, that the high trust of preserving the 
purest branch of it, has been confided to us^ — 'We feel it a 
solemn duty incumbent upon us, not only to preserve its faith 
intact and pure, but equally to vindicate it from the glosses 
of ignorance and prejudice, and zealously to cultivate those 
peculiar doctrines, which have always marked and do still 
continue to mark the distinction between the Church of 
Christ, and the sects of Christianity. 

By these principles, which instruct us how to perform our 
duty to God without violating our obligations to man, we are 
actuated in whatever nation we may reside. We seek not 
to interfere with, much less to overthrow any Christian form 
of worship which may be established by the civil constitu- 
tion, so long as it tends to promote the great ends of virtue 
and morality. For ourselves, we, at the same time, lay 
claim to the privilege of worshipping the Almighty in the 
manner we conceive to be prescribed by Him, and of keeping 
clear from what we consider to be error on the one side or 
on the other, whether resulting from the innovations of the 
Protestants or of the Romanists. In this country, grateful 
for the toleration which is afforded to the reformed Catholic 
Church, its pious ministers^ while they vindicate its doctrines 
and maintain its discipline, seek not to interfere with the 
Presbyterian establishment ; but, although they cannot enter 
6 



62 



THE CATHOLICISM OF THE 



into its communion, or attend its services, they duly appreci* 
ate its merits in contributing to rear and foster a thinking, a 
sober, a moral people. The same sentiments influence us, 
when resident in a country where the Church of Home is 
established. Far be from our views that misdirected and 
fanatic zeal, which would seek, at all hazards, the downfall 
of even an erroneous mode of Christian worship, reckless 
of the consequences which in removing one stumbling-block 
may open the door to a thousand others, and give loose to 
passions which war against the spirit of Christianity itself. 
That the day indeed will come when those branches of the 
Christian Church which still lie obscured under the corrup- 
tions of Rome, in the same state now, or nearly so, in which 
we were three centuries ago, will gradually be reformed 
according to our example, and by its own members be re- 
stored to that primitive purity to which we have returned. 
Christian charity commands us to hope — that the day may 
not be far removed Christian charity induces us to pray; 
still Christian humility instructs us to wait, in patience, for 
God's own time for the accomplishment of this glorious 
event. But if our charitable sentiments are thus largely 
exercised, when forming our opinions of other communions, 
how naturally, I repeat, are they exalted to brotherly love, 
when regarding the members of our own. There is, accord- 
ingly, among all true members of the reformed Catholic 
Church, a bond of union which no time, no distance, no 
disagreement even, on certain points in themselves indifferent, 
can ever dissolve. In its welfare, wherever it may exist, in 
England, in Ireland, in presbyterian Scotland or republican 
America, in the regions of the East, or the islands of the 
West, a true Catholic will take an interest, not less fervent, 
not less sincere, not less devoted than that which he experi- 
ences for the particular branch of it to which he may him^self 
belong, whether one member suffer, all the member's suffer 



ANGLICAN CHURCH AND ITS BRANCHES. 



63 



with it, or one member be honoured, all the members rejoice 
with it." 

Thus bound by every tie of duty and affection to have in 
honour all those of our brethren, who "continue to hold fast 
the form of sound words which they have heard;" we deem 
it equally incumbent upon us to prevent the rise, or to ani- 
madvert upon the progress of error, whenever it appears to be 
insinuating itself within the pale of our vineyard. It is not, 
therefore, with an indifferent eye, that we observe its stealthy 
growth among the scattered members of our communion, in 
the different parts of the continent of Europe. It is a well 
known fact that many thousands of British subjects are at 
the present moment resident abroad. The difference which 
exists betv/een that branch of the Church to which we 
belong, and the various Protestant Establishments, as well 
as the Church of Home, are too striking not to be at once 
discerned. These absentees from the land of their fathers, 
therefore, feel a natural dislike to attend, for a continuance, 
the public worship, as established in those countries , in 
which they may have taken up their abode ; while awful, 
indeed, must be the reflection to the pious, that there is 
either none qualified or none willing to administer the Sacra- 
ment of Baptism to the infant, or the Eucharist to the sick. 
An English clergyman is, consequently, the first object of 
their search; and with his aid, if attainable, they are accus- 
tomed to establish a chapel, under the sanction or the 
connivance of the government, in which the English service 
is performed. In doing this, they are at present, by necessity, 
compelled to act upon the principle of the Independents, 
with their ministers unlicensed, their chapels unconsecrated, 
and their children unconfirmed ! There is scarcely a mark 
of our Church to be discovered, excepting its liturgy ; nay, 
even the propriety of the conduct of that clergyman who 
takes upon himself to officiate among them, for a perma- 
nency, may be questioned. The truth qf this assertion, 



64 



THE CATHOLICISM OF THE 



which is made without any feeling of disrespect towards the 
many pious and excellent clergymen, who are at present 
compelled by necessity to perform their functions unlicensed, 
— will easily be perceived by a slight reference to the ordina- 
tion office. The Bishop immediately after the laying on of 
hands, is directed to deliver the Bible to the new-made priest, 
and to say : " Take thou authority to preach the Word of 
God. and to minister the holy Sacrament,"' — (not^ observe, 
in any place where he may find it convenient, hut) "in the 
congregation icliere thou shalt be lawfully appointed;" and 
those only we ought to deem lawfully appointed, according 
to our Twenty-third article, "who have been chosen by 
men who have authority in the congregation or Church, to 
call and send ministers into the Lord's vineyard" — that is to 
say, upon our episcopalian principles, by a Bishop. Thus, 
then, the clergy who officiate in the episcopal chapels in 
diffiereut parts of the Continent, are, through necessity, as- 
suming an authority which was not bestowed upon them at 
their ordination, and which can only be conferred by a 
Bishop. It may be said this license might be obtained from 
an English Bishop; — and although an English Bishop, un- 
able to visit the spot, might not, in every instance, be qualified 
to judge of the expediency of granting or of withholding 
such license, we are ready to admit, that if this were the only 
reason, it would scarcely justify the recourse now had to a 
measure of an extraordinary nature : but when coupled with 
others of equal or of greater importance, it is not to be over- 
iooked. There is no person. I believe, properly instructed 
in the principles of the Church, who will not readily acknow- 
ledge the very great importance of the solemn rite of confir- 
mation. The fear, indeed, of falling into the error of the 
Romanists, and of classing it with the two great Sacraments 
of the Gospel, has, perhaps, induced some persons to rank 
this sacred ordinance too low, and to regard it merely in the 
light of an edifying ceremony. Upon its real importance as 



ANGLICAN CHURCH AND ITS BRANCHES. 65 



the <T(ppayLg ocopeas -vevp.arog dyiov, in a Congregation so versed in 
primitive lore as the present, it were presumptuous in me to 
insist. Of this holy, apostohcal, and important rite the chil- 
dren of many thousands of our brethren, not merely travel- 
ling over, but actually resident upon the Continent, — who 
being engaged in trade or business, are likely there to remain 
— are now deprived. If this, then, were the sole object to 
be gained, who would not rejoice at the pious w^ork to which 
these venerable Prelates are this day about to lay their 
hands. But we go further, we not only lament the want of 
that order and regularity which result from the spiritual 
government of a Bishop, — we not only complain of the 
anomaly of Episcopalians dependent upon no Episcopus^ — 
but we look, with some degree of alarm, to the precedent 
which is set, of presbyters establishing, when out of the 
jurisdiction of their national Bishops, independent congrega- 
tions. Such a procedure, unwarranted by the doctrine, the 
canons, or the example of the primitive Church, can only be 
palliated by extreme necessity, — a necessity which is the 
present object to remove. The occasional visitation, also, 
of a superior, — the influence of one coming like a father 
among his people, especially upon the younger and less ex- 
perienced clergy, who are frequently employed in the con- 
tinental chapels, and who are thus placed in situations 
where the want of advice and experience is deeply felt; — 
the check, too, which this will have upon those who may be 
gradually, and almost unawares, yielding to the allurements 
of dissipation unchecked by any moral or religious restraints 
— ^ these are benefits which cannot — ought not to be over- 
looked. 

To promote then, these holy objects to which we have 
alluded, and to avert those evils which we so justly appre- 
hend, — to counteract, also, that too prevalent opinion, that our 
Apostolic Church exists wherever its hturgy is read, or its 
6* 



66 



THE CATHOLICISM OF THE 



doctrine preached; — to convince foreigners in general, and 
the Roman CathoUcs in particular, that our's is the primitive 
faith, and that with St. Ignatius we hold it not only necessary 
"to have one common prayer, one supplication, one mind, 
one hope," but that it is also necessary ''that nothing be 
done without the Bishop;"^ — that in the words of the same 
Ignatius, confirmed by the 32nd of the apostolical canons, 
*'it is lawful neither to baptize nor to celebrate the holy 
communion without the Bishop, without that is to say the 
episcopal sanction — to evince in short our faith, that ''sine 
Ejpiscopo nulla Ecclesia,^^ without a Bishop there can be no 
Church — is the present pious design of our right reverend 
fathers. Aware of their two-fold character, as Bishops 
bound particularly to the discharge of their episcopal func- 
tions within the districts to which they have been appointed 
by Providence, and generally as bishops of the Church at 
large, to promote the true faith in every place to which their 
influence may extend — aware also that to avoid great evils it 
is necessary to prevent small ones, — and that a schism may 
at the beginning be easily closed, which if left to widen 
unnoticed, may eventually be beyond our power to heal, — 
they have determined to invest with the episcopal character 
a pious and zealous presbyter of that branch of the Church 
which is established in England, who has for years volun- 
tarily devoted himself to the spiritual interests of our absent 
brethren;— -one, who qualified by his learning and piety as 
well as by his local experience, will cheerfully be guided by 
their advice, and in humility follow their example. And 
where — where can he find an example more worthy of 
imitation than that which has been afforded him by the 
Bishops of Scotland? Should persecution await him, — 
^Ep. ad Magn. cap. vii. 
sEp. ad Smyrn. cap. viii. Tertullian also speaking of Baptism, 
'* Daiidi quidem habet jus summus sacerdos, qui est episcopus dehinc 
Presbyteri et Diaconi — non tame?i sine episcopi auctoritate.^^ D' 
Baptismo, cap. xvii. 



ANGLICAN CHURCH AND ITS BRANCHES. 67 



which God of His infinite mercy avert ! where could he find 
an example more worthy of imitation than that which has 
been afforded by those venerable Prelates who, not a cen- 
tury ago, achieved the work, without the fame of confes- 
sors, — who exposed themselves to the storm of persecution, 
to shelter their ark from the annihilating blast which swept 
around it, — who undauntedly defended the priesthood from 
the aggressions of Korah and his company, but were like 
Moses, ''the meekest of men," — who "dared to be honest 
in the worst of times," that they might transmit their 
Church,- — and they have transmitted it, uninjured to you, — 
who having renounced every worldly comfort, every tem- 
poral hope for the sake of their conscience and their God, 
are now, we doubt not, enjoying a celestial crown with the 
martyrs of old. 

Should he meet, on the contrary, as we hope and pray 
that he may, with that toleration abroad which we extend 
to the Homanists here, where can he look, I would ask 
again, for an example more worthy of imitation than that 
which is afforded him by the Bishops of Scotland, who have 
inherited the virtues, but blessed be God, not the sufferings 
of their ancestors,— whose learning, talents, and unassuming 
piety shine forth the more conspicuous from their very 
poverty — who with the most uncompromising adherence to 
principle, unite a truly Christian liberality of sentiment — - 
who in their zeal as Churchmen forget not their duty as 
subjects, but while vigorously contending for tlie faith that is 
in them., through the fear of God, yield, without a murmur, 
the precedence which the laws have conceded to others, in 
their duty to the King. 

Commissioned by these holy fathers, he goes, according 
to the principles before laid down, not to interfere with, (let 
this be constantly borne in mind,) not by word or deed to 
give offence to any established Church or sect, but simply 
and exclusively to superintend the worship of the British 



68 THE CATHOLICISM OF THE ANGLICAN CHURCH, &c. 

residents in France and Belgium; to afford them the means 
of worshipping God in their own way ; to authorize their 
Sacraments, to confirm their children, to license their clergy, 
and where many have fixed their abode in one place, with- 
out a clergyman, to officiate among them, — to ordain some 
person qualified on the spot. 

This, my brethren, is the truly evengelical object which 
has brought together, upon the present occasion, the venera- 
ble fathers of your Church. But, "except the Lord keep 
the city, the watchman waketh but in vain." We call upon 
you, therefore, we earnestly exhort you, to put up your 
prayers to the throne of grace, that the Great Disposer of 
all human events may prosper their pious design, that He 
may grant a full proportion of "his heavenly benediction 
*'and grace" unto him who will be this day consecrated a 
successor of the Apostles ; that, following their bright ex- 
ample, "he may turn the hearts of the disobedient to the 
wisdom of the just?" that, "by his life and doctrine, he may 
set forth the glory of his gracious Hedeemer and set for- 
ward the salvation of all men." Finally, brethren, we call 
upon you, and earnestly exhort you to pray, that, by the 
important business of this eventful day, the knowledge of 
our apostolical doctrines may be more universally diffused, 
and, in consequence, more generally appreciated. May 
generation upon generation arise to preserve uncontaminat- 
ed and pure that one holt, catholic, and apostolical 
Church which was planted by the Apostles, and watered 
by the blood of martyrs — which was corrupted by our 
grandsires, and reformed by our sires. Thus may our 
children's children — may generations yet unborn, who shall 
bear our names when all other memorial of us will be lost — 
join with us and all good Christians, in the Church trium- 
phant in heaven, in ascribing blessing, honour, glory, and 
power unto the Great Shepherd and Bishop of our souls^ 
which was, and is, and is to come. 



SERMON IV. 



0in anir Danger of £uk^tt)armn^00. 



*'Thou art lukewarm." — Rev. iii. 16. 

Such was the character given to the Church of the Lao- 
diceans by Him who, being God Himself, assumed for the 
occasion a title which denotes decision of purpose, and sted- 
fastness of character, and described Himself as the Amen, 
the Faithful, and True Witness, marking more emphatically 
thereby the disagreement between those, who professed to 
be His followers, and Himself the divine example as well as 
Saviour of His Church. 

*'I know thy works," said our Lord to the Church of the 
Laodiceans, "that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would 
thou wert cold or hot." It was not to praise either the one 
extreme or the other that these words were uttered ; they 
were merely intended to describe the divine abhorrence of 
that lukewarm state, — in which, mistaken for the via media, 
men deceive themselves by supposing that, because they are 
not openly opposed to the Gospel, they must therefore be 
under its sacred influences ; and the mere professor of godli- 
ness accounts himself to be an Evangelical Christian. The 
man who is cold, without any religion, cannot be saved 
while he continues thus; neither can that man who is hot, 
whose fanaticism leads him to crime, as in former days to 
burn men at the stake, in these days to have recourse to evil 
speaking, lying and slandering against those who by adhering 
to the principles of the Church, may differ from himself ; — 
but there is more hope for these than for the political 



70 



THE SIN AND DANGER 



Churchman who, while professing a respect for religion, and 
boasting a charity which would palliate vice by countenancing 
error, careth for none of these things : there is more hope 
that the cold or that the hot will repent, than that the luke- 
warm who thinks that he is quite religious enough, will be 
converted. Of the lukewarm state, therefore, our Blessed 
Lord expresses His disgust in the very strongest terms; for, 
even as in the taste of that which is lukewarm, there is that 
peculiar nauseousness which will cause us at once to eject 
it from the mouth, so does the Lord Jesus nauseate the luke- 
warm character in the members of His Church, 

I say the members of the Church, instead of the Church 
itself, for when such a charge is brought against any particu- 
lar branch of the Church Catholic, it has reference not to what 
may be called the external circumstances of the Church, but 
to its existing members, forming the majority of which it is 
composed. A Church may be in externals corrupt, and yet 
not be guilty of the sin of lukewarmness : we could hardly 
say, for example, that lukewarmness is a charge which can 
justly, at the present time, be brought against the corrupt 
Church af Kome : whereas the sin of lukewarmness may be 
a prevalent sin in a Church, which like our own, has been by 
the piety and wisdom of our ancestors so wisely reformed, 
that she is regarded by her faithful children as the purest 
branch, without exception, which now exists of the Church 
Catholic. Even in this Church there may be lukewarmness; 
and if we say that their is lukewarmness, or that there has 
been lukewarmness, while we take blanie to ourselves, or 
cast it upon our fathers, we say it not in disparagement of 
our Holy Mother the Church, but of those her unworthy 
children, who, in spite of the Church, her injunctions and 
her discipline, have been guilty of the offence ; and when the 
charge is substantiated, it proves, not that the Church itself, 
externally considered, but, that the members of the Church, 



0^ LUKEWARMNESS. 



n 



at some particular period, require reformation. It was not 
in her liturgy and offices, it was not in her fastings and 
prayers, it was not in her forms and ceremonies, it was not 
m her sacraments and ordinances, that the Church of the 
Laodiceans required to be reformed, for at that period these 
were, in essentials, precisely the same in every branch of 
the Church ; the reform was necessary in those members of 
the Church who, notwithstanding the injunctions of the 
Church, were too sensual or too unscriptural to fast, and too 
worldly to continue instant in prayer, who profaned her 
liturgy and offices by attending them irreverently, carelessly, 
coldly, and thought that their neglect of her ceremonies 
argued, on their part, a superiority of wisdom, instead of 
proving, as it did, an absence from their hearts of humble 
faith and reverential love ; and who desecrated the sacra- 
ments and ordinances by coming to them with minds unpre- 
pared by a living faith for the reception of divine grace ; 
although none could have in words denied that, through the 
sacraments, grace was conferred upon hearts prepared to 
receive it, for this heresy, the anti-sacramental heresy, did 
not exist until, at a period much later in the history of the 
Church, the truth of the Gospel was made to succumb to 
the inventions of man. 

In every age, then, it becomes a question of solemn impor- 
tance to ascertain whether the Church in which God, by his 
predestination, election and grace, has appointed us to serve 
Him, be, or be not, at the existing time, in a lukewarm state. 

That the charge of lukewarmness is justly brought against 
the members of the Church of England generally, during 
the last century, can hardly be denied. AYe hear it contin- 
ually urged by those who observe that if the Church of 
England, that is, the members of the Church, clerical and 
lay, for the laity are as much a part of the Church as the 
clergy, had done their duty in times past, things would be 



72 



THE SIN AND DANGER 



very different from what they now are. And we may in a 
great degree trace this to the erroneous view which was, 
dm^ng that period, for the most part, taken of the connexion 
which exists between the Church and the State. 

Until the Revolution of 1688, the prevalent opinion was, 
that by a Christian country was meant a country which 
united itself with the Christian Church, not only by recog- 
nizing its doctrine, but by enforcing its disciplinary laws: so 
that the Jaws of the State should always be framed in agree- 
ment with the canons of the Church, and any new canons 
enacted by the Church, should always accord with the laws 
of the State. Hence, while the two powers, the spiritual 
and the temporal, in their legislative capacity often acted 
separately, the one body was bound to support the enact- 
ments of the other, and so the two bodies became, in the 
eyes of the people, in many respects, identified. And thus it 
came to pass, that heresy was regarded as an offence to be 
punished with the same severity as a felony, and an illegal 
conventicle of religionists was to be put down by the same 
armed force which was employed to quell a riot, or disperse 
an assembly of political revolutionists. In like manner, as 
in these days, if a person is conscientiously opposed to a 
monarchical system of government, he has no remedy but 
to leave the country and reside in a republic. Our ancestors 
thought that if persons could not conscientiously conform to 
the Church, there was no alternative left for them but to 
leave their native land, and go where they might find a 
system of religion more in accordance with their private 
judgment. So long as they remained in England, to the 
lasvs of England, whether of the Church or of the State, 
they were compelled to yield obedience. Of toleration they 
had no more idea than a Greek or a Roman politician had of 
the existence of a state of society without slavery. 

This notion accounts for many acts of severity, amounting 
often to persecution, on the part of our early reformers, from 



OF LUKEWARMNESS. 



73 



which, in these days, we should justly revolt. What we 
should now deem persecution, they regarded as a punish- 
ment necessarily inflicted upon the transgressors of the law, 
and they had no more compunction in restraining a schis- 
matic, than our present rulers have in punishing the dema- 
gogue w^ho breaks the peace : as the conscientiousness with 
which the latter holds his disloyal opinions is not now re- 
garded as an excuse, no such excuse was in former times 
admitted to exonerate the schismatic from the penalty of 
the law. The struggle down to the period of the E evolu- 
tion was not for toleration, but either for the establishment 
in this country of the presbyterian sect, instead of the 
Church, or for the re-introduction into the Church of those 
errors of popery which were so wisely repudiated at the 
reformation, and against which we still protest. 

At the Kevolution, the principle of toleration was posi- 
tively asserted, although it was not carried out to its full 
extent. We may regret that men could not be persuaded to 
act together in one body as regards religion, notwithstand- 
ing those dilferences of opinion which must exist, to a greater 
or less degree : since in civil affairs this they are able to do : 
but the experiment was fairly made for some time after the 
reformation, and it did not succeed. We must rejoice, 
therefore, that the next best course was adopted for the 
peace of society, and that toleration w^as established. A full, 
a free toleration is, under these circumstances, a blessing for 
which we cannot be too thankful it is a blessing to the 
Church not less than to parties tolerated, since it enables 
the Chu.rch, when her rulers are religious men walking by 
faith, to fix her attention solely on the question. What is the 
truth ? and she may then maintain the truth without respect 
of persons. But then, the fact of a toleration completely 
changed the nature of that alhance between the Church and 
State which had theretofore existed, although this circum- 



74 



THE SIN AND DANGER 



stance was not at once, or for some time, perceived. At 
that period, the Church might have disconnected itself fi^om 
the State, reserving only its endowments, since for her en- 
dowments, the Church is indebted to the munificence of 
individuals, and not to the liberality of the State, — for the 
State, though it has often taken from the Church, has given 
to it next to nothing. But this course was not pursued. As 
the rights of toleration became more extended, the canons of 
the Church intended for a whole Christian nation became 
more relaxed, for, without a violation of those rights, they 
could not in many instances be enforced. The rulers of the 
Church therefore, to keep up the little discipline they were 
enable to enforce, applied to the State and governed the 
Church. V " ' ecclesiastical canons as in times past, but by 
ac:s o_ , ...^ijl. Tiie consequence was, that rhe notion 
began to prevail that the Church was a mere creature of the 
State : the idea of the Church, an institution founded by 
Christ Himself, was permitted to sink into that of an estab- 
lishment, a sect created by man : made by a breath; and, con- 
sequently, liable to be by a breath destroyed. The worldly 
name of an establishment was, indeed, during the last cen- 
tury, made to supersede the divine name of the Church, and 
since there is a mighty and unseen power in a n"" ^ ^vord, 
the minds of men were gradually led from rei'.a. _ ii the 
outstretched arm of the Divine Head of the Church, to trust 
on the arm of fiesh, and regard the protection of the State as 
the one thing needful. Hence the Church being regarded 
as an appendage to the State, it was supposed that, although 
the State might act in sacred things through the ecclesiasti- 
cal as one of its departments, still by the State every thing 
was to be done : and the State doing nothing, nothing was 
accomplished: it was supposed to be the business of the 
State to build churches, and therefore a population grew up 
without any sufficient provision for their spiritual wants; 



OF LUKEWARMXESS. 



75 



it was thought to be the duty of the State to educate the 
people, and therefore the people were uneducated; it was 
thought to be the duty of the State to maintain Churches in 
the colonies and to establish missions, and consequently 
those very colonies which now form the United States of 
America, and in which a branch of the Church is flourish- 
ing under the. divine blessing.— -those colonies remained in a 
state of spiritual destirntion until they were divided from us ; 
nay, what was worse, since people had learned to connect 
the operations of the Church with those of the State, the 
State, through its various governments, sometimes prevented 
the Church fi'om acting, lest vrhat was done by the Church 
should alienate the minds of cei'tain classes of the people 
from the State : when the bishops, for example, wished to 
establish that Hierarchy in America, which, since the sepa- 
ration from tl:' ^" country, the United States have 

possessed, the ^, : nt of the day interfered to prevent a 

measure which was deemed to be impolitic. 

V/e ought not to be surprised at finding that the bishops 
and clergy, became mere functionaries of the State, when 
they had been led, by circumstances, to resign to the neglect 
of the civil magistrate the generality of those duties which 
ought to have devolved upon themselves as servants of the 
Lord Jesus, should think of n:iaking themselves comfortable 
at home, puffed up by their temporal dignity, and looking 
down upon their spiritual otiice : many, in consequence, be- 
coming self-indulgent themselves, were easy and lax in re- 
fen'ing to the discipline which they were no longer able to 
enforce : fasting, though strictly enjoined by the Church, 
fell into disuse, and clergymen were sometimes found to be so 
degraded as to palliate this neglect by representing fasting 
to be any thing but what it is. — to consist in the easy tem- 
perance of those who fare sumptuously every day, and whose 
private judgment was to decide in what the temperance, 



76 



THE SIN AND DANGER 



which required no self-denial, was to consist : daily prayers, 
together with the observance of Fasts and Festivals, which, 
at the beginning of the last century, were general, fell into 
desuetude, because to a self-indulgent people, clergy and 
laity, they were irksome : all mortification was regarded as 
popery : ail enthusiastic zeal and fervour of feeling as me- 
thodism : in things spiritual as in things temporal, each man 
seemed to be saying, soul take thine ease. 

There were, indeed, many and splendid exceptions; the 
more splendid, because the great and holy men who formed 
the exceptions, were great and holy in spite of adverse 
circumstances : But still I fear that in the description thus 
given, the picture has not been over-charged : and one chari- 
table conclusion we must draw from the contemplation of 
these circumstances ; — we may lament, but we cannot won- 
der at the fact, that many persons of ardent and enthusiastic 
minds, confounded the mal-administration of the Church, 
with the Church system itself, and in seeking for sympathy 
in those enthusiastic feelings of devotion which the Church, 
rightly administered, would encourage, quitted a communion 
which, if not absolutely cold, had, at least, become lukewarm: 
when we assert the principle of the Church, when we would 
recall to the fold the wandering child of error, we should 
deal very tenderly with those who have thus been educated 
in separation from the Church, by parents who, under such 
circumstances, seceded from it : it is a false charity not to 
tell them of their errors, and that we deem those errors to 
be of a serious nature, for it is by so doing that we awaken 
them to inquiry : but we are not to judge others, and even 
when they are most hostile to us we should say, — Father, 
forgive them, for they know not what they do.^ 

^ There seems to have been as strong a desire among the lukewarm 
during the last century to compel devout and enthusiastic men to leave 
the Church and go over to methodism, as there seems to be in the pre- 
sent day a determination to drive them into the Church of Rome. 



OF LUKEWAR.MXESS. 



77 



Of this past lukewarmness we are now reaping the sad 
fruits: we are surrounded by whole classes of enthusiastic 
men, who ought to be with us, but whose minds are alienat- 
ed from the Church : we are also surrounded by a popula- 
tion fast sinking into heathenism : immorality is prevailing 
in the manufacturing districts to an extent which cannot be 
contemplated without weeping, by the Christian Philanthro- 
pist. 

And what are we churchmen doing? We are certainly 
animated by an increasing activity, devotion, and zeal. But 
still we are too much inclined to look to the State for 
support: although, if we regard the case fairly, we must 
perceive that the State, formed as it novv is, and having 
granted a full toleration, cannot give to us its exclusive 
support : Eill that we can expect is, that, as an act of common 
justice, it will permit us to retain what we have inherited 
from our predecessors : nor would it be desirable that by 
accepting a grant of money from the State, (and it could 
never be equal to our needs.) we should afford another plea 
for the interference of the State in ecclesiastical affairs: al[ 
that the Chuixh should ask of the State i?, protection, — 
protection to her property, and liberty, by the taxation of 
that property, for the purposes of religion, to meet the de- 
mands which are made upon us, for the education of the 
people and the extension of the Church. By some such 
measure, much may be done : and blessed be God, by the 
voluntary contributions of our higher ecclesiastics, much in 
this respect is beginning to be done : but much more, and 
that more systematically, remains to be done : large sacrifices 
must be made by the bishops and clergy; and although- we 
should not expect so much in proportion from the laity, 
since the clergy are to set the example, and since they 
receive their endowments that they may be the better able 
to do so, — still, large sacrifices, very large sacrifices must 
7* ' ■ 



78 



THE SIN AND DANGER 



be made by the Christian laity. If you wish to hand down 
to your children the blessings which belong to that pure 
and reformed branch of the Catholic Church, which, when 
rightly administered, is indeed the purest portion of the 
Christian vineyard, equally removed from the superstition 
and from irreverence,— if you wish to extend its blessings 
through the length and breadth of the land, you must sacri- 
fice much. And this is no time, my brethren, for slumber : if 
we love the Lord Jesus we must be up and doing : they may be 
angered who are aroused from their easy slumbers, when we 
call upon them to awake and arise : the clergy may be 
angered when we tell them that more is required of them 
than to live respectably, to preach eloquently with the entic- 
ing words of man's wisdom, to declaim on platforms, and to 
rush into controversy with one another: the laity may be 
ai ^ ' " ' ' ' ' : something more is required 

g:. : _ _ :^gment upon a preacher, to 

criticise sermons, and with a domineering spirit to maintam 
- ' " cf opinions : when we exhort them to acts of 

bid tliem, instead of paying others to do what 

they ought to do themselves, to take up the cross that they 
may devote themselves to the cause of a Crucified Master. 
But by all who are in earnest, the warning cry must be 
raised, and we must tell each man to dread, as he would 

r :? i t'ls loss of his Saviour's love, the accusation. Thou art 

,. ^ , / 

I have said that the charge of lukewarmness, when 
' ' ^ against a Church, has reference, not to its institu- 
- . to its members. At the time of the reformation it 
was in her institutions that our Church required to be re- 
formed: in a season of lukevrarmness, the reformation is 
needed in her members, in her clergy, and in her laity — in 
ourselves, my brethren. Let us each one' of us have regard 
to one individual, even to ourself; let us vindicate ourselves 



OF LUKEWARMNESS. 



79 



from the charge of lukewarmness, by a zeal and enthusiasm 
in the cause of our Glorious and most Blessed Master, coij- 
trolled only by those rules of moderation which the Church 
has laid down ; and when all the members of the Church, 
or the great majority both of clergy and laity, have ceased 
to be lukewarm, of lukewarmness the Church itself can no 
longer be accused. Remember, my brethren, that if a whole 
Church may be rejected because it is lukewarm, if it may 
fall and its candlestick be removed out of its place, — much 
more shall this be the case with respect to individuals: with 
respect to those vrho, w^ithout entirely renouncing, never 
seriously believe the doctrines of the Church: who, without 
completely disregarding attempt not universPclly to obey the 
precepts of the Gospel; who without torally relinquishing, 
do not cordially adopt or uniformly act upon the principles 
of religion : who, without absolutely denying, do not practi- 
cally observe the sanctions of Scripture ; who, without scorn- 
fully despising, do not confidently depend upon the promises 
of Christ : who, though they do not always forsake the 
House of their God, or attend there with the wanton levity 
which we have sometiinss with sorrow to observe, yet are 
not regular in their attendance on the ordinances of religion, 
nor take part in them with habitual seriousness: who, al- 
though they admit the general importance of Christianity, 
do not experimentally feel it; who, without abandoning the 
principles of the Church, or thoce high truths for which 
Confessors bled and Martyrs die], yet from motives of 
w^orldly interest, or under the impmce of worldly fears, to 
avoid persecution, or to escape ridicult. neD:lect steadily, 
consistently, and fearlessly to support the glorious cause. 
These are the lukewarm, these, who think of S\. If instead of 
Christ and His Church,— these who say Lord, Lord, but do 
■ not attempt to do the will of their Father whicx. is in 
Heaven; these, who though not against Christ are Lot 



80 



THE SIN AND DANGER 



decidedly with Him : these, who have Jacob's voice but 
Esau's hands ; — these are the hikewarm : these are they 
wlio beat the air and waste their time for nought; who have 
enjoyed so much of Divine illumination as to see the path of 
hfe and to admit the necessity of walking in it; who have felt 
some of the various motives which would invite, almost impel, 
them into the narrow path; who have been under that pre- 
venting grace of God, by which the Holy Ghost would press 
those motives on the conscience; who have gone, as it were, 
to the top of Calvary and seen the dying Lamb in his 
agonies, tlie stupendous sacrifice of God Incarnate, whose 
minds have felt overawed at the sight, their hearts almost 
melted into penitence, almost kindled into love, and have still 
hesitated.— have lukewarmly neglected the salvation they 
would not coldly reject, and when nothing less than the 
agony and bloody sweat, the Cross and Passion of their 
Incarnate God, vv-ould suffice to obtain for tliem the possibility 
of Heaven; when the Roly Ghost has been ever present to 
convert their hearts of stone into hearts of flesh, — have 
remained only one degree better than civilized heathens, 
doing only vrhat mere men of good m.orals would do under 
any circumstances, even though they had never heard the 
name of Christ : these are the lukewarm : and the lukewarm 
will in the last day be rejected by Him who is the only 
Saviour, and whose words, ^'Depart from me^ for I knoiv 
you not,'' imply everlastin^f^ misery. 

It is delightful to turn from such thoughts as these to the 
bright example of devoted zeal which is now before us; it 
has been in no niggard, no lukewarm spirit, that the vicar of 
this parish has come forward and, aided by subscriptions, but 
chiefly from his private resources, has erected this goodly 
fabric, in which we are now assembled, a sanctuary worthy 
of this important town. He has felt that what was decent 
orderly when Leamington was little more than a country 



OF LUKEWARMNESS. 



81 



village, ceased to be decent and orderly when Leamington 
became a city of palaces: he has felt, in the spirit of David, 
that when lordly palaces are arising around him for the 
convenience of the wealthy and great, the House of his God 
ought not to be the only edifice left unadorned by those arts 
and that science, in which the Good God has made us pro- 
ficients. In your own house you desire to have every thing 
done decently and in order, and you consider that to be 
decent and orderly, which is in accordance with your station 
in society. It is right that it should be so it is right that 
your children should be accustomed to the sight of w^hat is 
decent and orderly, it is right that you should receive, with 
something of ceremony, those with w^hom you are accus- 
tomed to associate, for civilization is the handaiaid of virtue. 
This is the case with all except the few who, having no 
dependents, no family demanding their attention, have asked, 
What shall I do, Lord? and having received for answer — ^'•if 
thou wouldst he perfect, go and sell that thou hast and give to 
the poor ^ and thoushalt have treasure in heaven, and come and 
follow me,"^ have retired from society to devote themselves 
to works of mercy and an ascetic life. Except these, you 
are accustomed to act as I have stated. But the principle 
upon which you act in your homes, you ought surely to act 
upon, also, in regard to your Heavenly Father's House. 
The poor man remains contented in a humble cottage ; the 
first thing that a successful adventurer does is to build a large 
house and to adorn it with works of art. The humble 
Church, decent but unadorned, the uninstructed choir, and a 
few ceremonies, such as may serve to remind men where 
they are, will amply suffice for the requirements of the 
humble villager. But when the village has increased to a 
town, religious persons still wish the sanctuary to surpass in 
height the houses by which it is surrounded ; they desire to 
see it standing in grandeur and with all proper decorations; 
b Matt. xix. 21. 



82 



THE SIN AND DANGER 



yes, they are unwilling to permit their larger churches to 
remain unadorned, and the services there to be unaccom- 
panied by ceremony, when they think of the grandeur in 
which our earthly sovereign is lodged, and the ceremony by 
which she is served. What the great God, the searcher of 
all hearts, requires in the first place, and without which all 
external worship is worse than useless, — a mere mockery, — 
is the inward homage of the soul justified by faith; but 
though idtJioid this, external worship is vain, yet surely hy 
this, attention to external worship is not excluded. What 
our Sovereign Lady the Qaeen most desires in her subjects 
is loyalty of heart : and she would spurn with indignation 
the homage rendered, even on the bended knee, by those 
whom she might know to be plotting treason ; but does it 
follow that she will reject, rather does she not require, those 
marks of respect in all who approach her, which, although 
they may be counterfeited by the traitor, are, nevertheless, 
the conventional and recognized expressions of loyalty? 
Nothing, then, can be more unphilosophical than the argu- 
ment of those, whether infidels or men of mistaken piety, 
wlio contend that because God is to be worshipped in spirit 
and in truth, therefore no attention is to be paid to the form, 
the manner, and the ceremonies by which that inward 
homage is to be expressed and our general wants stated. 
The external worship without the inward, so far as the indi- 
vidual pretending to worship is concerned, is, as I have said, 
worse than useless ; but there is no legitimate therefore in 
the case, to bring us to the conclusion that the external 
worship is to be disregarded. A man may bend his knee 
and yet not pray, but there is no therefore in the case to 
prove that in praying we ought not to kneel. 

We find that, under the Old Testament, from which we 
are to gather, not the details, but the principle of public 
worship, God did Himself give directions in regard to the 



OF lt.tkewar:\ixess. 



83 



services of the sanctuary. He was pleased to descend from 
Mount Sinai in a cloud, and in the midst of external circum- 
stances calculated to excite the awe of all beholders: He 
admitted Moses into His presence, and gave him the two 
tables of stone, and, as it is supposed, conferred upon him 
the spirit of prophecy, adding directions for the formation 
of a magnificent tabernacle, and for the performance of the 
divine worship therein. And it was under the same divine in- 
struction, that Solomon acted, when the tabernacle, decent 
and orderly for the vfilderness, was superseded by the temple, 
a house more in accordance with the altered circumxStances 
and increasing wealth of the sons of Israel. And let not 
the proud heart suppose that^circumstances deemed trivial, 
which the Almighty God himself stooped down from heaven 
to direct, are beneath the attention of man who is a worm. 
The Lord God who knows all hearts, knew that external 
circumstances were necessary to maintain the spiritual wor- 
ship of the Jews; and, as human nature is still the same, the 
same necessity still exists. We require external worship as 
well as inward sanctification ; and the external worship 
should, as far as it rests with us, be vrorthy of Him to whom 
it is offered,— we should give of our best,— and although 
the soul is the first concern, and the sanctified soul would be 
heard though praying from the dung-hill of Job, the regula- 
tion of the body and of things outward, types of the inward, 
are not to be disregarded. 

Now here we have an answer to the question which the 
cold and the lukewarm will combine to ask when they be- 
hold this magnificent pile,— "to what purpose is this waste? 
— the money might have been more profitably expended by 
building churches in those various manufacturing districts in 
which church accommodation is so sadly needed." Thus 
did the unconverted and therefore lukewarm Apostles argue, 



84 



THE SIN AND DANGER 



when the poor woman anointed our Dear Master's Head in 
the house of Simon the leper. 

Now it is very true that the money expended upon this 
church might have been employed in erecting more churches 
than one, — but who is he, the lukewarm man, who com- 
plains of the waste? Let us ask him whether he is in 
earnest in his zeal for the erection of new churches? Let 
him ask his own heart whether he is not a hypocrite, though 
hitherto he knew it not, in objecting to our present pro- 
ceeding? Let this zealot of utihty, this strict utilitarian, 
who grudges the few expensive ornaments by which this 
church is adorned, when next he sits down at his own board 
to fare sumptuously, while surrounded by menials ceremo- 
niously waiting upon him, — let him cast his eyes upon his 
sideboard heaped with plate, and let him calculate how many 
churches the sale of that plate would enable him to erect ; 
and then, when he has erected them, let him come to his 
pastor, and we will see even then, whether there be not still 
something to say in behalf of the expenditure here, which 
excites the wrath of the lukewarm. Alas ! you pile ingots of 
gold on the altar of self, and are content with casting a nig- 
gard farthing on the altar of God. In saying this, we may 
be deemed extravagant and mad; and where is the true 
Christian who is not deemed extravagant and mad by the 
lukewarm utilitarians of this world ? But is every thing to 
be accounted extravagance and madness, except what is 
based upon selfishness? When the wealthy man of the 
world expends on the erection of his family mansion what 
would suffice to build a hundred churches, or when the 
avaricious ecclesiastic, whether presbyter or prelate, instead 
of endowing as many more, saves up the patrimony of the 
Church to endow his children and establish a name m the 
world, are they accounted extravagant and mad ? Then 
surely the religious man may say, " / am not mad, most nolle 



OF LUKEWARMNESS. 



85 



Felix,^^ when, instead of keeping that splendid estabUshment, 
or erecting that lordly edifice, which his means would other- 
wise afford, he expends his money in erecting a palace for 
the King of Kings ; when, instead of adorning his ovvm walls 
with costly pictures, he seeks rather the adornment of his 
heavenly Father's House ; when, instead of having his own 
sideboard covered with plate, he would rather decorate the 
Table of his master; when the sum that he might expend 
merely upon himself, he expends for the use of his neigh- 
bours also, and for the glory of his God. Will you say that 
of splendid and adorned churches we read not in the New- 
Testament ? We answer that in the New Testament we 
read that " all that believed were together and had all things 
in common^ and sold their possessions and goods and parted 
them to all men as every man had need:^'^ we read that " the 
multitude of them that believed ivere of one heart and of one 
soul : neither said any of them that ought of the things ichich he 
possessed was his oivn^ but they had all things in common 
nay, we read, as many as were possessors of lands ^ or houses^ 
sold them and brought thein to the Apostles- feet^ and distribu- 
tion was made to every man according as he had need.^^^ We 
read that the women were expressly exhorted not to adorn 
themselves " with broidered hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly 
array ;^ in short, all seemed to be alarmed by that fearful 
saying of our Blessed Saviour: '^it is easier for a camel to 
go tJirough the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter 
into the Mngdoni of heaven.''^ 

Now, then, to be consistent, if you would have us to be 
guided by the Bible, and the Bible, only, as to the character 
and decoration of our churches, you must become very dif- 
ferent persons from vfhat you now are, you must reduce 
yourselves to poverty. But you will say — "No, though 

«^ Acts ii. 44. ^kcis iv. 32. « Acts iv. 34. 

a Tim. ii. 9. s Mat. xix. 24.' 

8 



86 



THE SIN AND DANGER 



these texts against riches and worldly grandeur are perplex- 
ing, circumstances are changed, and we will explain them so 
as to apply them to those altered circumstances, still admit- 
ting the principle." We concede the point to you! — We 
wish to assent to your explanation ; but then, if, in these 
altered circumstances, you find your justification, these 
altered circumstances justify us in desiring to build churches 
not less splendid than those ceiled houses in which you 
dwell : when the time shall come, as come it probably may, 
when Christians will revert to primitive simplicity, then, 
but not till then, we may think of having for our sanctuary 
the upper room of a hired house. 

But if the rich cannot, Vv'ith consistency, complain of the 
expenditure which, with no lukewarm spirit, has been lavish- 
ed on this house, the poor, I am sure, will not. For what 
to them has been the consequence ? By the erection of this 
church, hundreds of poor persons have been for many 
months employed. They might have been employed in 
erecting private houses, but mark the difference ! The 
working man, when employed in erecting the worldly palaces 
around us, knows that he is contributing to comfort and 
elegance in which he will have no share: the artist decorates 
the rich man's mansion ; the cunning artificer in brass and 
iron, the inventor of the musical instruments, all complete 
their work; and then the door is closed upon them, — other 
eyes, not theirs, gaze with admiration on the result of their 
labours : the strains of melody, perhaps of sacred music, are 
heard, but the poor man is not suftered to remain even be- 
neath the windows to listen to the sweet sounds produced by 
the very instruments which his own hands wrought : how dif- 
ferent is it with respect to this House ! This is God's House, 
the House therefore of the children of God, the House of 
the poor : the poor man has tastes, and feelings, and gentle 
sentiments, oftentimes more genuine than the rich; here, in 



OF LUKEWARMNESS. 



87 



this House to which he has, if possible, more right than the 
rich, he can look upon the work of his hands, he can see 
that in w^orking for God he has been working for himself; 
here the decorations are intended for him ; here the sweet 
sounds of music are intended to aid his devotions, to soothe 
and to calm his weary soul, and to render his duty a delight ; 
unless his heart be sanctified, he knows full well that God 
will not accept him, but if his heart he right with God, while 
he is worshipping in spirit and in truth, he will rejoice to be 
reminded by eye and ear, that he is in his Father's House, 
and that the homage due to the King of Kings and Lord of 
Lords is rendered by dedicating to His service every art and 
science in which we have profited. 

To what purpose was this waste ? Will the lukewarm 
repeat the question? Let the poor man give the answer, — 
for the glory of our Good God and the comfort of God's poor. 

I have been called upon by the circumstances of the day 
to allude to the worthless, ay, I will say, the wicked; argu- 
ments by which the lukewarm rich, pretending to a sober and 
rational, but a very heartless religion, would depreciate, and 
if they could, annihilate such good works as these, which we 
are assembled to commemorate, thus seeking to deter the 
more pious and self-denying of the rich from setting an 
example which it would be inconvenient to follow. But 
arguments equally worthless are adduced by the lukewarm 
against every good work in every department of the Chris- 
tian field; against every attempt to raise, to spiritualize the 
Church and warm her children into zeal. Be lukewarm, be 
lukewarm, says the world, to be otherwise than lukewarm 
is indiscreet! Because thou art lukewarm, saith He who 
once came as our Saviour and will return as our Judge, ^'•Be- 
cause thou art lukewarm I ivill spue thee out of my mouth. 
Surely, my brethren, as I have said before, it will add to the 

. ^Rev. iii. 16. 



88 



THE SIN AND DANGER 



agonies of liim who shall be lost, to find that he was only 
excluded from heaven because he was lukewarm : so luke- 
warm, as not to have rejected, but still to have slighted the 
oft-repeated proffers of salvation ; so lukewarm, as to have 
neglected the many opportunities of doing the good works 
which God had prepared for him to walk in; so lukewarm, 
as to have been an "almost" and not an "altogether" Chris- 
tian ; it will add a keener feeling of anguish to his heart to 
find that he has gone down to the world of darkness by that 
path which is nearest to the regions of light ; to feel that he 
did but just miss the road to glory, just fail of being one of 
that happy company which surrounds the Throne of Glory, 
just fail because when all the mercies of redeeming love, in 
an Incarnate God, were brought before him, he remained 
lukewarm. 

It is time, my brethren, to have done, and to have done for 
ever, with supposing religion to be merely important ; with 
v/isMng carelessly and lukewarmly that its blessings may be 
ours, without any vigorous effort on our part to realize them ; 
with acknowledging its duties and its claims, while we ne- 
glect to perform and to meet them. It is no time to hesitate 
w^hen all is at stake ; no time to delay our choice between 
life and death, between heaven and hell, when that day may 
come unawares, which will take the question out of our 
hands and decide it for us; ay, and if we continue amenable 
to the charge, " Thou art luliewarm^^'' decide that we are 
undone for ever. The fact is, my brethren, that Christianity 
must be to us every thing, or it is nothing : it must attend us 
at all times and in all places ; whether we eat or whether we 
drink, or whatsoever we do, at our going out and our coming 
in, at our studies, our business, our relaxations, above all, in 
the sanctuary, we must be very zealous in our Master's 
work. "We must remove from ourselves and so from our 
Church, all suspicion of lukewarmness ; schools, missions? 



OF LUKEWARMNESS. 



89 



charities, Churches, and Church services, all are to be 
zealously supported by all who love the Lord Jesus, by all 
who have the Good God for their Father, and our own dear 
Church, once polluted, now reformed, once lukewarm, now 
rising into life and energy, for their Mother. Of wealth, 
and time, and thought, we must all contribute much, and let 
us each dread before all things the charge once brought 
against the Church of the Laodiceans, Thou art IvJcewarm. 
So may we do away the evil elfects of past lukewarmness, 
and the Lord our God may even yet give us His blessing : so 
may our candlestick, instead of being removed, be burnished 
bright, and its light still shine before men to the glory of God 
the Father. 



SERMON V. 

^akt ^ttb tnijat ^tav. 

PREFACE, 

ON SOME OF THE EXISTING CONTROVERSIES IN THE CHURCH. 



The following Sermon was written and preached five 
years ago, as a caution against ultra-protestantism. It has 
been lately delivered again from the pulpit, since an attempt 
has been made,^ in an opposite quarter, from which one did 
not expect a bitter and insidious attack upon Church-of- 
England theology, to unsettle men's minds, and to lead them 
to suppose that we have no definite rule for the interpretation 
of Scripture, but must either on the one hand adopt that 
licentiousness of private judgment which is peculiar to ultra- 
protestants, or else have recourse to that doctrine of devel- 
opments by which the modern Romanists seek to justify all 
the corruptions of popery ; as if there were no alternative 
between these two systems, one of which makes the indivi- 
dual a pope to himself, the other denying him the use of his 
reason altogether. 

The three tests to which all theological questions must be 
referred are Scripture, Church authority, and Reason. 
Each of the three has its proper place and office: Scripture 
supreme ; Church authority our guide to the sense of Scrip- 
ture; Reason not to question, but to apprehend the fulness 
of the truths so taught. To leave out all reference to autho- 
rity is to act the empiric in theology, just as a man would in 

^See Ward's Ideal of a Christian Church." 



92 



PREFACE TO 



law, wlio should pretend to give his opinion frond the statutes, 
without regard to custom or precedent, and the cases in the 
reports. It is dealing with the most worthy of all sciences 
in a way that is not to be tolerated in the most ordinary of 
all. And in fact it is counteracting a law of Providence, 
which has made this the prescribed way of informing the 
reason of us all in our childhood ; and to the majority of 
mankind a way that is intended to regulate their course 
through life. 

But if this be so, we admit that it is necessary for us to 
shew w^hat Church authority really is. Anglicans refer to 
something definite, the doctrine and practice of the primitive 
Church, as embodied in our Book of Common Prayer. Pa- 
pists reject the testimony of antiquity and mean by Church 
authority the decisions of their Church at the present time, 
whether accordant or not with Scripture, or with the doc- 
trine received by our Fathers, as the faith once, and once for 
all, delivered for the saints. This was openly asserted when, 
in the Council of Constance, the cup v/as withheld from the 
laity. Romanists and Romanizers, as may be seen on re- 
ference to Mr. Ward's Book, are as much opposed to primi- 
tive doctrine, as ultra-protestants can be; they use indeed 
precisely the same arguments against Anglo-Catholics. 

That there are some few, very few, members of our 
Church at the present time, who may possibly before long 
become apostates, and go over to the Church of Rome is 
much to be feared. Of the friend of one of these persons 
the writer enquired the cause of discontent, and received for 
answer, that the discontent arises '*from our internal state 
united with our isolated position." 

As regards our internal state they are appalled by what 
they suppose to be '*an indilference to heresy and truth on 

^ See the author's Sermon ** The Novelties of Romanism, or Popery 
Refuted by Tradition." 



SERMON V. 



93 



the part of our spiritual rulers." " Sabellian heretics," it is 
asserted, ''have been advanced to high places in the Church 
without any protest on the part of our ecclesiastical supe- 
riors; dignitaries of the Church have published, unrebuked, 
the most offensive rationalism ; five or six hundred clergy- 
men have openly and heretically denied the grace of the 
Sacraments, besides attacking other doctrines of the Prayer 
Book, and their conduct has not been noticed ; and in more 
instances than one Nestorian heretics, instead of being cen- 
sured, have been treated Vvith honour." 

How far these charges be or be not correct, it is not 
necessary to enquire ; the charge brought against the rulers 
of our Church, is that of "indifference to heresy," and it is 
the justice of this general charge that we deny. They may 
have overlooked heresy in some persons, they may have 
acted unjustly to others ; they may or may not have put a 
favourable construction upon words which are thought to 
have an heretical meaning : they may or may not be charge- 
able with many other offences ; it is not the business of the 
present writer to defend them ; all that he maintains is, that 
their zeal against the heresies of Romanism^ as distinguished 
from Catholicism, a zeal which, as the very persons who 
bring the charge against them complain, amounts almost to 
a spirit of persecution, — this exonerates them from a feeling 
of ^^indifference towards heresy." In every age of the 
Church, the attention of its rulers has been chiefly directed 
to the suppression of the prevalent heresy, whatever it may 
have been; and the most deadly heresy of the present day is 
the Mariolatry and Idolatry introduced by Romanism into 
the Church.^ No heresy can be worse than this, which 
introduces an idolatry more offensive than that of which the 
kingdom of Israel was guilty, into the temple of God."^ 

^ It seems scarcely possible to acquit the maintainers of the Council 
of Trent of Pelagianism. 

^See the author's Sermon on Peril of Idolatry." 



94 



PREFACE TO 



Against this, the prevalent and most deadly heresy of the 
day, our spiritual rulers take their stand, and our Church, 
by standing aJoof from Rome, utters her protest. If the 
facts are as stated above ; if the God-denying heresy of 
Sabellianism has crept into high places; if one or two digni- 
taries have published rationalistic books, there may be a want 
of sufficient vigilance on the part of our ecclesiastical supe- 
riors, or their attention may not have been called to the fact, 
or they may be guilty of injustice, but this does not prove 
them to be ''indifferent to heresy." Nor can the charge be 
fairly brought against them by the advocates of the Romish 
Church, the rulers of which notoriously tolerate practices 
and tenets of which, in controversy, they express their disap- 
probation. 

As to *' our 'isolated position," if by this be meant our 
standing ppart from idolatrous Rome ; it should be remem- 
bered that the Romish communion does not embrace the 
majority of Christians, the Eastern Church, like the Church 
of England, holding no communication with the Roman see. 
And instead of being surprised at our "isolated position," 
we should look to the prophetical Scriptures, and from them 
we may be led to the conclusion that ere the end cometh, 
the true Church will be so reduced in numbers, that faith, 
true Christian faith, will scarcely be found on earth. Our 
God forewarns us in 2 Thess. ii. 3 — 11 : 

''Let no man deceive you by any means; for that day shall 
not come except there come a falling away first, and that 
Man of Sin be revealed, the Son of Perdition; who opposeth 
and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is 
worshipped ; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, 
shewing himself that he is God. And then shall that Wicked 
be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of 
his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his com- 
ing : even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan 



SERMON V. 



95 



with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all 
deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish ; be- 
cause they received not the love of the truth, that they might 
be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong 
delusion, that they should believe a lie." 

Upon this and parallel passages, Bishop Horsely, that 
painful student of prophecy, remarks that the Son of Per- 
dition is to rise out of an apostacy, 'a falling away, not 
a constructive apostacy, never understood to be such by 
those to whom the guilt has been imputed,— -but an open 
undisguised apostacy. The Son of Perdition, who shall be 
neither a Protestant nor a Papist, neither Christian, Jew, 
nor Heathen; who shall worship neither God, Angel, nor 
Saint; who will neither supplicate the invisible iMajesty of 
Heaven, nor fall down before an idol. He will magnify 
HIMSELF against every thing that is called God and wor- 
shipped : and with a bold flight of im.piety very far above his 
precursers and types in times of paganism, — the Senna- 
cheribs, the Nebuchadnezzars, the Antiochuses, and the 
Heathen Emperors, will claim divine honours to himself ex- 
clusively, consecrate an im.age of himself. I doubt not," 
adds Bishop Horsely, ''but this monster will be made an 
instrument of that pruning which the vine must undergo."^ 
" The Church of God," remarks the same most learned 
prelate, mighty in the Scriptures, " the Church of God on 
earth will, according to prophecy, be greatly reduced in its 
apparent numbers, in the time of antichrist, by the open 
desertion of the powers of the world. The desertion will 
begin in a professed indifference to any particular form of 
Christianity, under the pretence of universal toleration; 
which toleration will proceed from no true spirit of charity 
and forbearance, but from a design to undermine Christian- 
ity, by multiplying and encouraging sectaries. The ^re- 

^ Quoted by Burgh on the Second Advent, p. 99. 



96 



PREFACE TO 



tended toleration will go far beyond d^just toleration, even as 
it regards the different sects of Christians. For governments 
will pretend an indifference to all, and will give a protection 
in preference to none. All establishments will be laid aside. 
From the toleration of the most pestilent heresies they will 
proceed to the toleration of Mahometanism, Atheism, and at 
last to a positive persecution of the truth of Christianity. 
In these times the temple of God will be reduced almost to 
the Holy Place, that is, to the small number of real Chris- 
tians who worship the Father in spirit and in truth, and 
regulate their doctrine and their worship, and their whole 
conduct, strictly by the word of God. The merely nominal 
Christians will all desert the profession of the truth when 
the powers o^ the world desert it. And this tragical event I 
take to be typified by the order to St. John, to measure the 
temple and the altar, and leave the outer court, (national 
churches,) to be trodden under foot by the Gentiles. The 
property of the Church will be pillaged, the public worship 
insulted and vilified by these deserters of the faith they once 
professed, who are not called apostates, because they never 
were in earnest in their profession. Their profession was 
nothing more than a compliance with fashion and public 
authority. In principle they were always what they will 
now appear to be. Gentiles. When this general desertion 
of the faith takes place, then will commence the sackcloth 
ministry of the witnesses; there will be nothing of splendour 
in the external ministry of the Church, as it will then be : it 
will have no support from governments, no honours, no 
emoluments, no immunities, no authority but that which no 
earthly power can take away, and which they derived from 
Him who commissioned them to be His witnesses."^ 

It is rather, then, for the parity and the perfecting, of our 
Qwn branch of the Church Catholic than for union with 

^Bishop Horsley's Letters in the British Magazine, 1834. 



SERMON V. 



97 



other branches, that we must labour. What ever divine 
work has once been destroyed by man, can never by man be 
reconstructed, and the restoration of unity in the Church 
we can hardly expect before the coming of our Lord. Let 
us seek to prepare our own Church, that she, *'amid the 
faithless may be faithful found," when the apostacy is almost 
universal ; let us seek to prepare her children, by an increase 
of holiness and of true rehgion, for the impending persecu- 
tions of antichrist ; let us seek to prepare her that she may 
be the " Holy Place" where faith may still be found when 
our Lord shall come ; perhaps as the "Daughter of Tyre" 
she is herself the subject of prediction; may she be "ready 
with her gift" when her King shall appear, and may he 
"have pleasure in her beauty."^ 

That this ought to be our immediate object we may 
gather from the signs of the times ; for certain signs are 
provided in Scripture by which the faithful may infer the 
approach of the Son of Perdition. " This know," saith our 
God, 2 Tim. iii. 1. 6., "that in the last days perilous times 
shall come ; for men shall be 

" Lovers of their own selves, selfish ; 

" Covetous, (pi\dpyvpoi, lovers of money; 

"Boasters; 

"Proud; 

"Blasphemers; 

" Disobedient to parents ; 

"Unthankful; 

"Unholy: 

"Without natural affection; 

"Truce breakers, (covenant breakers ;) 

" False accusers ; 

"Incontinent, (unbridled;) 

"Fierce; 

" Despisers of those that are good ; 

g Psalm xlv. 

9 



98 



PREFACE TO 



"Traitors; 

"Heady, Highminded ; 

" Lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God; 
"Having a form of Godliness, but denying the power 
thereof." 

How far these signs are apphcable to the present age, each 
man will decide for himself ; but this is evident, that we 
certainly live in an age distinguished both for selfishness ^nd 
for the love of money; ooastful of itself; too proud to brook 
restraint, or defer to authority ; when some hlaspheinies, 
such as Ariauism and Socinianism, have been legalized as 
parts of a tolerated system of religion, and when the circula- 
tion of blasphemous pablications is unrestrained, because it 
is found impossible to restrain it, hlasphemy being openly 
preached in oitr streets: when the Factory System, spread- 
ing through Europe, is reversing the order of nature, by 
making children to labour for their parents, from whose 
discipline they soon learn to revolt, while their i/isuhordina- 
tion to parents prepares tliem to resist all civil restraints; 
when the object of public writers is not to make men thank- 
ful for what they have, but to make them discontented for 
what they have not ; we are so far unholy as to supersede 
God's Sacrament of Baptism by man's law of registration, 
thus preparing the way for entirely unchristianiziug the 
country: vre live in an unholy age, when marriage is made 
a civil contract, and a patient continuance in well doing is 
represented as mere legality almost inconsistent with per- 
sonal piety: when Sacraments, though said by the Church 
to be necessary to salvation, are despised, and acts of devo- 
tion are accounted superstition: when we find the natural 
affection no longer prevailing, which ought to subsist between 
the employer and the employed, the ruler and the ruled, the 
maste^' and the servant: when families are scarcely formed 
ere they separate, and the members of which, when sepa- 
rated, care little for each other ; when it is thought a mark 



SERMON V. 



99 



of genius, by covenant hreaJcers, to evade a law as soon as it is 
enacted ; when tlie father of lies, the accuser of the brethren, 
has more agents at work than at any other time ; when false 
accusations are malignantly invented and carelessly propa- 
gated against all who are distinguished in any department of 
life; when charity has so evidently ceased to be part and 
parcel of Christianity, that each opponent imputes to his 
adversary motives the most corrupt, predicating of every 
other man, the abomination of which he is himself conscious; 
when the sensual and the malignant passions are unbridled 
and unrestrained; when the fierceness of even religious 
partizanship is such as w^ould disgrace a heathen ; when 
treason is, if successful, accounted no crime ; when there is 
a form of godliness, much talk of religion, but when religion 
is seen to evaporate in feeling or mere formality, and is not 
permitted to display itself in works ; a suspicion being sug- 
gested that a good man may, by possibility, trust in his own 
righteousness, instead of relying on the merits of Christ, and 
the accuser of the brethren arguing that what may be the 
case in some instances, must be so in all.^ 

Such being the word of prophecy, and such the condi- 
tion of the world, it seems, as I have said, more expedient 
for us of this generation to be putting our own house in 
order, than to be indulging in vain desires to put together 
again the broken fragments of the church universal. 

In the isolated position of their Church, Anglicans, there- 
fore, see no difficulty ; how^ever they may lament the fact 
that Rome, by her idolatries, has caused a division in Chris- 
tendom; for, the guilt of the schism we charge upon Rome. 

^ See on this subject "The Last Days; a Discourse on the Cha- 
racter of our Times, by Edward Irving:" in which he shews how this 
prophecy is applicable to the religious world as well as the profane. 
This most powerful, most interesting and eloquent work, is but slightly 
tainted with the doctrinal errors of the author, and may be read with 
profit by every English Churchman, 



100 



PREFACE TO 



But \yliile Anglicans are as strongly opposed to the Church 
of Rome as ever, they are as fully persuaded now, as they 
always have been, that the cause of Rome can only be 
successfully opposed by displaying the excellence and restor- 
ing the discipline of the Church of England. If to make 
manifest the spiritual capabilities of the Church of England 
were at any time necessary, it is so especially at the present 
time, when earnest and ardent minds are cravnig for some- 
what on which to fix the longings of their souls, and to which 
our own dear Church can so fully give scope, if only justice 
be done to her. W^hen all is cold and lifeless; when the 
forms of the Church are adopted, not in the fulness of their 
meaning, but in the spirit of the conventicle, one can hardly 
wonder that weaker brethren, looking only to one side of the 
question, and disgusted by the unreality of ultra-protestant- 
ism, and by that demoralizing system which supersedes the 
divine doctrine of justification by faith, by the human fig- 
ment of justification by the feelings, should be found to yield 
to those allurements which the Church of Rome holds out; 
for every one will admit that the Church of Rome has a 
bright side as well as a dark one: and, indeed, the fault of 
the Romanizers is, that they look only to what she retains of 
Catholic doctrine and practice, and close their eyes to thase 
anti-scriptural novelties and damning heresies by which she 
has overlaid, and obscured, and mutilated the truth. 

It has been observed of the Church of England that 
although she is chaste and pure, she is cold, repulsive, and 
without accomplishments : whereas the Church of Rome is 
affectionate, considerate of all her children, aird full of 
accomplishments, enlisting in the service of religion all the 
arts and sciences, and seeking to interest the imagination as 
well as the aftections: her allurements, then, are to some 
minds great : but those whom she seeks to allure are re- 
pulsed, because, by her idolatries, she proves herself to be an 
adulteress. But, as it is undoubtedly true that in the object 



SERiMON V. 



101 



of our affections, we require somethiDg more than chastity, 
that we desire some accomphshments and much warmth of 
affection, the true-hearted sons of the Church of England 
may be pardoned when they seek to infuse something of 
devotional warmth into her services, and to provide for 
penitent and faithful hearts, the high spiritual comforts 
which result from ceremonial worship. These things are 
not to be forced by an overbearing clergyman on an unwil- 
ling people, but when, from the spirituality of a flock, the 
comfort resulting from ceremonial observances is demanded, 
the demand ought surely to be met, as our Church permits ; 
since, while the more pious will be gratified, wrong can be 
done to no one, if care be taken to do only what the Church 
prescribes. On this subject the author has expressed his 
opinions elsewhere 'J and here he may be permitted to re- 
mark, that he has always been the consistent opponent of 
popery on the one hand, and of ultra-protestantism on the 
other, as may be seen on reference to his various pubhca. 
tions during the last twenty years ; and he has perceived 
nothing in later controversies to induce him to change that 
position in the via media which it has been his happiness 
hitherto to occupy, and in which he hopes to die. 

If. as is sometimes stated, the preaching of the truth as 
held in the Church of England has led some persons on to 
popery; let it be remembered that the preaching of ultra- 
protestantism has hurried many more into the Sabellian or 
Socinian blasphemies; and if the argument here used to 
silence those who preach "the truth as it is in Jesus," be 
worth any thing, it must cause the Bible itself to become a 
sealed book, because the "unstable wrest the Scriptures to 
their own destruction." 2 Pet. iii. 17. 

•See a Sermon on Mutual Forbearance in Things Indifferent and 
a Sermon on the Moderation of the Church of England." 



9* 



102 



TAKE HEED 



SERMOxN V. 

Take heed what ye hear.'" — -Mark iv. 24. 

Of the great importance of the ordinaDce of preaching, it 
must, in these days, be unnecessary to speak. That its im- 
portance ought not to be exaggerated, so as to elevate it, out 
of proportion, above other ordhiances of rehgion, must be 
evident to all. To shew you precisely its value, will be, by 
God's blessing, my purpose this day. 

It is to be feared that many entertain an exaggerated 
notion of the importance of this ordinance, owing to the 
prevalent cust9m among some persons of applying to the 
delivery of sermons, those passages in Scripture which 
speak of preaching. But the slightest consideration must 
convince you that the character of oral preaching must have 
been very different hefore. the Scriptures were written, from 
what it has been since. Faith could come by hearing, and 
by hearing only, before the Scriptures of the Xew Testa- 
ment were delivered; — at that time an Apostle either went 
himself, or sent a bishop, priest, or deacon, to tell the people 
what? precisely what inspired men afterwards wrote, and 
loe now read, in the Holy Scriptures. The preachers were 
then infallible men, moved by the Holy Ghost to declare to 
the people the way of salvation. And the people were 
dh'ected to place implicit reliance on what they heard, just 
as we are now to place implicit reliance on what we read in 
the Bible, so that if an impostor was to come, with whatever 
pretences of wisdom or knowledge, he was to be rejected, if 
he spake contrary to what had been preached. Though 
we, or "an angel from heaven," says the Apostle, "were to 
preach any other Gospel to you than that we have preached, 



WHAT YE HEAR. 



103 



let him be accursed:" an anathema which no modern preach- 
er, I presume, whether Romanist or ultra-protestant would 
venture openly to declare, though, alas ! it is insinuated by 
too many. You see, — hefore the Bible was written, and 
while the preachers (whether an Apostle, like St. Paul, or 
apostolical men, like St. Mark aod St. Luke) w^ere miracu- 
lously inspired^ — preaching supplied the place of the Scrip- 
tures of the Xew Testament, and instead of referring to the 
New Testament, which was not written, men could only 
refer to the preaching of these infallible teachers. So that, 
strictly speaking, what those teachers, moved by the Holy 
Ghost, uttered, wr.s the '!'^ord of God > 

But the case VyT^^ di'lerent when by these inspired men the 
several Books of ;'ie ? ew Testament were composed, when 
miraculous inspiration was withdrawn, and the canon of 
Scripture had been arranged and authenticated by the 
Church. Then the only reol word of God was the Bible, 
—the only true preaching of the Gospel, in the sci'iptural 
sense of the word, was the reading of the Bible to the peo- 
ple. And thus we find that among the very earliest Chris- 
tians, after tlie departure of the Apostles, the service of the 
Church consisted, not in the delivery of sermons, as among 
us, but in the devout reading of Scripture, (which they re- 
garded as the true preaching of the Gospel,) with prayer, 
and with the administration of the Eucharist. They attend- 
ed Church regularly to hear the wo/d of God, as preached 
in his infallible Scriptures, they prayed for all those things 
which were necessary for their souls, as well as their bodies, 
and they sought for the Gifts of the Holy Spirit, through 
the appointed means of grace. 

And this deep reverence for Scripture is still retained in the 
Church of England. During the middle ages, the practice 
of thus making the reading of Scripture a prominent part of 
divine service fell into disuse. At the Reformation this office 



104 



TAKE HEED 



was restored to its primitive prominence and importance. 
While by the two hostile extremes, by Romanists through 
their legends, and by ultra-protestants through their exclu- 
sive devotion to sermons, the reading of Scripture, i, e. the 
preaching of the pure unadulterated Gospel, is nearly if not 
entirely set aside. By the Church of England four chapters 
of the Bible are appointed to be read every day, while provi- 
sion for sermons is only made once in the week ; all addi- 
tional sermons being a freewill offering on the part of the 
clergy to the people, and a freewill offering, which ought not 
to supersede what is of equal or even greater value, cate- 
chetical instruction. So prominently does the Church of 
England, like the primitive Church, bring forward the Scrip- 
tures. 

But this preaching of the pure unadulterated Gospel; this 
scriptural preaching, without any admixture of human inven- 
tions; this reference to Scripture and to Scripture only, will 
not alone suffice. At a very early period, the delivery of 
sermons, also, explanatory of Scripture, was found to be 
necessary. For heretics appeared, who drew conclusions 
the most erroneous from Scripture, and under the seeming 
sanction of holy writ, doctrines the most iniquitous were pro- 
pagated. Hence it became necessary for the clergy not 
only to read the Scripture to the people, but in order to 
guard against the sophistry of heretics, to explain it to them, 
by pointing out the precise meaning attached by the univer- 
sal Church to the portion of Scripture they had heard. 
They said, first hear the plain unadulterated word of God, 
and next hear the sense in which it has always been under- 
stood from the beginning ; and this was the origin of preach- 
ing by the delivery of sermons. Sermons were intended, not 
to supersede Scripture, but to explain Scripture. And such 
was the general character of the sermons delivered in the 
primitive Church. The Sermons of the Fathers are almost 



WHAT YE HEAR. 



105 



entirely expositions of the Scripture, and this it is which 
renders these writings so peculiarly valuable : they shew 
with respect to every passage of Scripture of which the 
meaning is ambiguous or doubtful, the sense in which it was 
understood from the first days of Christianity. Hence it is 
that you hear the Fathers so loudly declaimed against by 
those who would introduce novelties into religion, or adhere 
to human system ; hence it is that you find them respected 
by all who obey the Scriptures and ask for the old ways 
that they may walk therein : for we know that the Christian 
Rehgion was once, and once for all, delivered to the saints, 
and that whatever is new must be erroneous.^ 

If at an early period of the Church, this kind of preaching 
(preaching by the delivery of sermons) became necessary; it 
is as necessary, or even more necessary in our own times, 
when all kinds of false doctrines are promulgated under the 
pretence of being scriptural. A most important ordinance, 
then, is this of preaching. I am not wishing unduly to de- 
cry the ordinance of preaching, but I merely wish to pre- 
vent you, from applying to modern sermons all that is said 
of preaching in the Bible, which refers to the preaching of 
infallible men, and thus from elevating preaching above Scrip- 
ture, — human inventions and traditions, above the inspired 
word of God. I would have you to make a clear distinction 
between Scripture and man's interpretation of Scripture: 
I would have you to remember that what Scripture says 
is infallibly true ; but man's interpretation of Scripture, — 
(and preaching, in the modern sense of the word is this 
and merely this) — is fallible ; I would warn you against the 
common practice of saying this man does, or this man does 
not, preach the Gospel, for he only preaches the Gospel 
who reads to you the plain words of Scripture, just in the 
order in which we find them in Holy Writ : what is added 

5 Bishop Pearson, Preface to Exposition of the Creed. 



106 



TAKE HEED 



may be a scriptural interpretation, or may not be scriptural 
interpretation ; it may be a true interpretation, or it may be 
false interpretation; but still it is only an interpretation or 
explanation and nothing more ; and to speak of this expla- 
nation or interpretation as of necessity the preaching of the 
Gospel, (because you happen to think that what the preacher 
says is conformable with Scripture,) to the exclusion of any 
other interpretation, is not only the height of arrogance, but 
is a mere begging of the question ; since the dispute between 
two preachers, w^ho both of them appeal to Scripture, but 
deduce from Scripture very opposite conclusions, is, which 
of the two declares in very truth the mind of the Spirit? to 
take upon yourself then to decide this, is to arrogate to your- 
self the office of judge, before you have proved your com- 
petency, or redeived your authority to act as such. All such 
modes of thinking and of acting, are, I repeat, of a very 
injurious tendency; because it leads people to confound two 
things which are in themselves perfectly distinct, — two 
things which ought to be keyt perfectly distinct, — the infal- 
lible w^ord of God and man's very fallible comment there- 
upon; the genuine Gospel of Christ, ivith some religious 
system of man's devising, which you may think to be con- 
sistent with Scripture, which you may think that you can 
prove from Scripture, but which, after all, since you are but 
fallible creatures, may not be consistent with Scripture : but 
which it is at all events most dangerous to speak of as Scrip- 
ture, since it may bring upon you the punishment denounced 
on those who handle the word of God deceitfully. 

Now if this be so, yo?i see, my brethren, the need there is 
to warn men that they take heed what they hear. Suppose, 
just for the sake of argument, that there were no other obli- 
gations to induce a conformity to the Church of England; 
suppose, for the sake of argument, (what we can, by no 
means, suppose as a real fact,) that we were to regard 



WHAT YE HEAR. 



107 



instruction as the main thing to be thought of in attending a 
place of worship, and that we were at hberty to select our 
place of religious instruction, it w^ould become a question of 
the most solemn nature, warned, as we are, to take heed 
what we hear, to ascertain the precise measures adopted by 
the preacher, whose teaching we should determine to attend, 
in order to ascertain in all instances, the real meaning of the 
Bible ; for though he says he preaches the Gospel, he may 
not really do so. Some preachers assert that they explain 
Scripture according to the system of Calvin ; but why 
should Calvin's system be more right than the system of any 
one else ? Some assert that they explain Scripture accord- 
ing to the system of Arminius; but why should Armiuius be 
more right than Calvin? Different sects take for their de- 
nomination the names of their founders, to announce the 
system they adopt in the interpretation of Scripture. Now 
all these parties, though they preach the most opposite 
doctrines, assert of these opposite doctrines, that they are 
each of them Scriptural, and declare of themselves that 
they preach the Gospel. But among these oppositions of 
doctrine, how shall you decide W'hich is in the right? 
Each claims Scripture to be on his side'; each quotes 
Scripture: and how are you to determine what is of ne- 
cessity the true meaning of Scripture, more than another? 
Some person perhaps wall say that he has prayed to be en- 
lightened by the Holy Spirit, and therefore he is sure that 
his interpretation is the true one. But such person ought 
in charity to admit that he to w^hose interpretation of Scrip- 
ture he is opposed, may have prayed likew^ise to be enlight- 
ened by the Holy Spirit ; and if he has done so, w^hat gain 
we by this position? Wesley we know prayed and pro- 
nounced himself to have been assured by the Spirit, and 
consequently to be infalhbly certain, that Whitfield was 
wrong ; and \^7^itfieid prayed and felt as infallibly assured 



108 



TAKE HEED 



and certain that Wesley was wrong. Even Sociniis prayed 
and thought that his God-denying heresy was infalhbly 
right.^ 

It is, indeed, essential that on this point we should have a 
clear notion. That the assistance of the Holy Spirit is 

necessary to theiu that would understand Scripture aright, 
who that knows any thing of man's evil heart can for one 
moment doubt 1 who can doubt, who has the slightest ac- 
quaintance with Scripture itself? The natural man receiveth 
not the things of the Spirit of God. for they are foohshness 
to him. neither can he know them because they are spirit- 
ually discerned. Xo man kuoweth the Father, save the Son, 
and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him. The pro- 
mise is made that His children shall be tau£:ht by God Him- 
self. And iu'vain. my brethren, will you give your nights 
and your days to the study of Scripture, unless the Holy 
Ghost be thus present with you. to write the truths of Holy 
AVrit upon the tablets of your hearts: in vain will you read 
unless likewise you pray: and most assuredly those who 
(being communicants) pray earnestly for the enlightening of 
the Spirit while they read, will have the Holy Ghost for 
their Helper, for to them, for their crucined Saviour's sake, 
he has promised his assistance. But here comes the ques- 
tion. — What J:ind of assistance has he promised? Has he 
promised to make the illiterate man a skilful critic 1 Has he 
promised to confer the 2:ift of tongues on those wLo are un- 
able to read the Scriptures in their original language ? Has 
he promised to enable those to read who have never learnt to 
read? These things he does /lot do. and by not doing these 
things, he declares that it is /lot to our intellectual, but to 
our ?7ioral nature, that he promises his assistance. The Holy 
Spirit will inspire the prayerful Christian with a spiritual 

^ See also the awful instaDce of the deistical writer, Lord Herbert of 
Cherbury, in Leland-s Deistical Writers, Vol. 1. 470. 



WHAT YE HEAR. 



109 



perception of the truths which he has intellectually dis- 
cerned, i. €. with such a view of them as shall produce a 
suitable impre"ssion upon his mind, and a corresponding effect 
upon his heart and life ; but he will 7iot inspire a man to 
know precisely the meaning of this or that particular passage 
of Scripture. He will inspire a man with a wish to believe 
and to do whatever Scripture reveals or ordains, with the 
wish and the abihty to eradicate the corrupt passions and 
prejudices which make him hostile to the truth ; but he will 
not bestow upon him the abiUties of a critic, a linguist, and 
an antiquarian, so as to enable him dogmatically to decide 
between two sj'stems of doctrine, both claiming to be scrip- 
tural, which is really so. That the intellect is clearer, when 
the moral temper is good is doubtless true, and thus indirect- 
ly he may be said to influence the intellect; but further than 
this Vv'e go not, and they who refer to some favourite com- 
mentator or preacher, as if in his interpretation of .Scripture 
he 7nust be correct, act clearly on the principle of the papists 
when they refer to the pope as an infallible interpreter of 
Holy "Writ. 

How, then, shall plain men act, who have not time or 
ability for a critical investigation of Scripture, but who are 
aware that they ought to take heed what they hear ? Let 
them hear the Gospel, as the Church delivers it. Let them 
hear, with the Prayer Book as well as the Bible in their 
hand; let them study their Prayer Book thoroughly, not 
only the 3Iorning and Evening Services, but all the Offices, 
the Baptismal Office, the Office for the Holy Communion, 
the three Creeds, and the Ordination Offices. Let a man 
take his Prayer Book as his guide in the interpretation of 
Scripture, and with respect to the meaning of Scripture he 
cannot greatly err. 

But I have alluded before to the absurdity of taking for 
our guide any human systems, and here the objection may be 
10 



I 



110 TAKE HEED 

retorted upon me, that I am myself enforcing a human system 
in the Prayer Book. In answer to this, let me remind you 
of what our Prayer Book is. The English Prayer Book is 
not the composition of a few reformers who lived a few 
centuries ago, but it is the translation and re-arrangement of 
Greek and Latin Rituals of the remotest antiquity, such as 
have been in use throughout the Church universal from 
time immemorial. Our Prayer Book was in all its essential 
parts in use here in England from the earliest ages, long be- 
fore the Reformation. But during the middle ages, through 
papal influence, certain innovations and superstitious obser-^ 
vances had crept into it, and all our reformers did, was, after 
comparing the liturgy then existing, with the ancient litur- 
gies, with Scripture, and with those interpretations of Scrip- 
ture which the Fathers have handed down to us, as the inter- 
pretations received from the very foundation of Christianity, 
to cut off from it all innovations, which had been ignorantly 
adopted by some, or introduced with bad designs by others,- 
and then to translate it into English. And thus the value of 
the Prayer Book, considered as a guide in the interpretation 
of Scripture, consists in its having embodied the doctrines 
which were carefully preserved by the early Church, as the 
very doctrines received from the Apostles, when the inspired 
Apostles preached by word of mouth, before the Scriptures 
of the New Testament were composed, and which vrere 
handed down from age to age, with the most jealous accuracy, 
until by the intrigues and jealousy of the popes of Borne, the 
unity of the Church universal was destroyed. This is our 
strong point against the Romanist, that we have kept "the 
faith once delivered to the saints," without diminution and 
without addition. And is it not a probability amounting to 
a moral certainty, that when we find that, like the two parts 
of a cloven tally, these doctrines thus preserved correspond 
entirely with Scripture, we have, then, ascertained the pre- 



WHAT YE HEAR. 



Ill 



cise determinate sense of Holy Writ ? that when, for instance, 
the tradition of the Church universal, preserved in our 
Prayer Book, and traced up for its origin to the inspired 
Apostles, tells us of the Divinity of our Lord, we are amply 
justified in applying all those passages in Scripture to prove 
his Divinity, to which Socinians would attach a different 
meaning? that "when this tradition, preserved in our Prayer 
Book, sanctions the practice of infant Baptism, we have a 
right to quote in favor of our practice those passages of Scrip- 
ture which relate to the Baptism of households and of na- 
tions, let Anabaptists say what they will ? that we may prove 
in like manner the lawfulness of our making the Lord's day 
to supersede the Sabbath? The Prayer Book, like the tradi- 
tion it embodies, adds nothing to the doctrines received in 
the Bible, for wo be to us if we add thereto or take there- 
from; the Prayer Book reveals no new doctrine, but it is of 
indispensable use as explanatory of Scripture, as rendering 
definite Ih^meaning of Scripture, as unfolding to us the great 
system which the Bible has made know^n.*^ 

^The reformed Church of England, in short, claims for her own 
that rule of faith, which the ancient Church ever professed before the 
times of division between east and west, and the erection of the papal 
power. ''Anathema to him," said St. Ambrose, "who adds any thing 
to the Divine Scriptures, or diminishes aught from them." (Council 
Aquil. § 36.) '' But we condemn those also," said his brother Bishops, 
*^ who are adversaries to the truth as it was established at the Nicene 
Council." (Ibid, § 58.) So speaks the Church of England, taking the 
Nicene Creed, and the other two Creeds of the primitive Church, as true 
expositions of " the faith once for all delivered to the saints." The an- 
cient Church every where received the decisions of the four first general 
councils as entitled to the greatest deference, composed as they were of 
delegates from all the Christian world, and each in strict accordance 
with each other. This peculiar deference was paid to them by the early 
English Church, before the popes had intruded their canon-law, and 
asserted their rights to supreme civil and ecclesiastical power. So that 



112 



TAKE HEED 



The Church then, you will observe, has the Scripture 
itself read in all her services, which is, strictly speaking, 
Gospel preaching ; she directs that in the interpretation of 
Scripture, as delivered from the pulpit, deference shall be 
paid to the Prayer Book; and the wise layman, who studies 
his Bible with the light of his Prayer Book, will certainly 
never fall into dangerous error, never be guilty of heresy, as 
embodying the doctrine and discipline received from apos- 
tolic times : — And why? Because this is the rule, to which 
the Scripture itself has promised the blessing of inward satis- 
faction and peace of mind. " Stand ye in the ways, and see, 
and ask for the old paths, which is the good way ; and walk 
therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls :" rest, in the 
resting-place of truth: safety, from the paths of the de- 
stroyer ! 4 

And thus, my brethren, I have laid before you a rule of 
the wisdom of which you will be the more and more per- 
suaded, the more you reflect upon it. It is a rule, by the 
observance of which you will be kept steady to your profes- 
sion, and not be among those who are carried about by every 
wind of doctrine : as must be the case with all who, not tak- 
ing heed of what they hear, run first to one sect and then to 
another, thinking that because in some points all are agreed, 
there can be no material difference between any. Among 
the trials of our present probationaiy life, this is one, that 

ou this point the doctrine of jElfric's time was in perfect unison with 
the statute determining heresy, drawn up with the advice of the Bishops 
of the reformation. (^Ifric's Past. Epist. § 23. 29. Stat. 1 Eliz.) 
And what can be more intelhgible in itself, or more consistent with right 
reason, than this rule, which the Prayer Book every where embodies ? 
Who can hope to gain credit even A'ith reasonable men who sets himself 
not only against the faith of the present Church, but against the general 
consent of the Church from the time of the Apostles ? For a fuller ac- 
count of the primitive and Anglican doctrine on the use of tradition, see 
the author's Five Sermons before the University of Oxford." 



WHAT YE HEAR. 



113 



we acquire the knowledge of the truth slowly and gradually. 
We are therefore through life to be reading and medita- 
ing on our Bible, to gain a nearer insight into the truth ; 
we ought daily to be adding to our spiritual knowledge, as 
well as our spiritual experience. 

It is not sufficient to say, (as I hope you all can do,) I 
believe on the Lord Jesus, I rely for salvation on the alone 
merits of the crucified Lamb of God, I seek for sanctification 
only by his Spirit, and through his Ordinances and Sacra- 
ments; I hold the foundation, and that is enough. Upon 
that foundation you ought to build gold, and silver, and pre- 
cious stones ; you may build thereon wood, hay, stubble. 
But what says the Apostle? If the former be the case, you 
will have your reward, if the latter, you will suffer loss. 
It is into all the revealed council of God that we are to en- 
quire, as it is all his commandments that we are, in intention, 
to obey. Nay, it ought to be our wish, in all, the very 
slightest particulars, to seek to discover the Divine Mind. 
Yes, if we really love the Lord Jesus, this will be our desire 
in small things as well as in great; in all things; If we do 
indeed, and with all our hearts, believe in all that he did and 
suffered to achieve our salvation ; if we are accustomed to 
contemplate him, as in his glory, so in his humiliation, as at 
the right hand of power, so also in the cradle, and amidst his 
enemies and persecutors and slanderers, and in his passion on 
the Cross ; if we are accustomed to hold communion with 
him in his Eucharist, and being one with him by a living 
faith to partake of his Spirit ; then our's will be no niggard 
service ; then we shall not divide our duties into the essential 
and the non-essential ; even in the slightest particular we 
shall delight to shew our devotion, love, and gratitude to the 
Lord Christ; we shall dread the charge of irreverence far 
more than that of superstition : we shall not only worship 
him, but seek to worship in the very manner in which the 
10* 



114 



TAKE HEED WHAT YE HEAR. 



first Christians worshipped him, since that manner received 
the approbation of the inspired Apostles : nay, we shah, being 
in communion with the saints of God, both those who are de- 
parted and those who are still in the flesh, wish to agree in 
all their recorded practices, so that, as I said before, we 
ought to be continually enquiring, continually adding to our 
faith knowledge, and passing on from one degree of spiritual 
knowledge to another; and since our duty is this, since it is 
our inclination encouraged by the Spirit of God. since we 
are, for this purpose, both to read Scripture and to hear ser- 
mons, the rule becomes indeed an important one — -take heed 
what and how ye heai\^ 



SEEMOX VI. 



THEIR CAUSE DEFENDED. 

Then the disciples, ever}- man according to his ability, determined to 
send relief unto the brethren which dwell in Jiidea : which also 
they did, and sent it to the elders by the hands of Baraabas and 
Saul.— Acts xi. 29, 30. 

Our text refers to the very first collection that ever was 
made in the Christian Chnrch for a charitable purpose. 
From that day to this, eighteen hundred years have passed 
away, and have become to ns as the years before the flood: 
yet, in all those eighteen hundred years, it may be doubted 
whether any appeal has ever been made to Christian bene- 
volence more worthy of attention than that which, at the 
present time, awakens the sympathies .of our countrymen, 
and which will not, I trust, be made in vain to the congre- 
gation I now address. In soliciting your contributions for 
the rehef of the Irish Clergy, an appeal is made in behalf of 
your starving fellow-creatures, and to such an appeal whose 
is the heart that refuses to respond ? An appeal is made to 
you in hehalf of your fellow Christians, and if you are ready 
to do good to all men, where is the Christian heart which is 
not especially ready to do good to them that are of the 
household of faith ? An appeal is made to you in behalf of 
those ministers and stewards of the mysteries of God, who, 
however they may be thought scorn of by the profligate and 
profane, will always by the true Christian be esteemed very 
highly in love, for their works' sake ; an appeal is made to 
you, always calculated to quicken the throbbings of a really 
English heart, in behalf of men suffering under persecution, 
— and persecution for what? simply for believing as you 
believe, and for teaching as you are taught. 



116 THE CATHOLIC CLERGY OF IRELAND; 



It has been the misfortune of Ireland from an early period 
to be the arena of contending factions.^ It was owing to the 
violence of contending factions that Henry II. first gained 
a footing in that island, — it was owing to the existence of 
these factions that all the measures of the English govern- 
ment (especially the wise and benevolent designs of the first 
James,) for the welfare of the people, were rendered abor- 
tive ; it was owing to the existence of powerful factions, and 
of chiefs exercising power little short of despotic, that the 
greater part of that country (all except what was included 
within the English pale} was for so long a period not mis- 
governed but perfectly lawless. Of late years, all these rival 
factions have mingled their discordant elements into one 
harmonious whole, and having combined against the Church 
of their forefathers, have had recourse to every art the most 
refined policy could suggest, to effect its overthrow as an 
establishment. The mode of attack has varied according to 
circumstances, but still it has been systematic. At one time 
there were spread abroad the most exaggerated statements 
as to its enormous wealth, for the double purpose of gaining 
to the side of its enemies those who hoped to share in its 
spoils, and of exciting the envy, hatred, and malice of others 
who wish to see the pastors of a wealthy country reduced to 
beggary, in order to bring religion into contempt; and re- 
ferring to the poverty of the twelve Apostles, forget that the 
laymen, at the period to which they allude, instead of con- 
secrating a portion of their goods for the maintenance of 
God's service and his ministers, brought a^Z their wealth and 
laid it at the Apostles' feet. This report of the Church's 
wealth the present appeal to your benevolence sufficiently 

^ That the great source of Irish misery has been not the foiotr of 
England, but its loant of power, to put down the various factions of that 
country, is very ably shown by Dr. Phelan. in his " History of the Policy 
of the Church of Rome in Ireland." 



THEIR CAUSE DEFENDED. 



117 



disproves; for if the incomes of the clergy had been what 
they were represented to be, it is not possible that they could 
have been reduced, in the course of a few years, to their pre- 
sent destitution. But the strongest contradiction may be 
found in the parliamentary documents, from which it appears 
that if the property of the Church were equally divided 
among the Clergy, it w^ould give to each very little more 
than c£22o a year;^ no very exhorbitant sum for those who 
before they can be ordained must receive an expensive 
education ; no very exorbitant sum for the maintenance of 
those who are commanded by Scripture (which in delivering 
the command pre-supposes their competence) to be given to 
hospitality, and who are ever found to be foremost in ail sub- 
scriptions to charities, parochial or otherwise. This mode 
of attack, however, answered its purpose, — it brought mode- 
rate men to the conclusion that something ought to be done 
with respect to the Irish establishment, — it familiarized their 
minds with the idea of change. 

The mode of attack was then a little changed, and an out- 
cry was raised against the Irish Clergy as being negligent of 
their duties and non-resident : but here again, upon inquiry, 
it was found that there is no body of Clergy in all Europe 
more strictly resident than the Clergy of Ireland, and that as 
to their zeal, it amounted if any thing to excess, evaporating 
itself sometimes even in fanaticism, — a circumstance to be 
deplored if true, but still perfectly inconsistent with the 
charge of supineness and inactivity. Still the attack did its 

^ The whole income of the Church in Ireland has been stated by Sir 
Robert Peel and Sir Henry Hardinge — men who have a character to 
sustain, and who have access to official documents — not to exceed 
£450,000 a year. ' I positively declare,' says Sir Robert Peel, ' that I 
believe it to be under that sum.' In Ireland are about 1400 benefices ; 
so that if the whole were divided equally among the 2000 clergy, eacl 
would receive about £225 a year." — Important Facts y p. 8, 



118 



THE CATHOLIC CLERGY OF IRELAND ; 



work, and being believed for a time, has left an impression on 
the public mind not yet worn out.^ 

Of late a new and most notable method of attack has been 
devised. It has been discovered by certain politicians, who 
never on any other occasions have shown any great zeal for 
the Protestant cause, — ( and the discovery has been hailed by 
the applause of leading Papists,) — that the Church as at pre- 
sent established, and during the time she was in the enjoyment 
of ample, revenues, retarded instead of advancing the progress 
of the reformed religion ; and that to render her efficient she 
must be crippled in all her resources, and reduced to poverty 
and distress, — that if there is to be a crown on her head, it 
must be a crown of thorns — if a sceptre in her right hand, 
it must be a powerless reed. Now, we might consider the 
absurdity of this statement to be too great to require an 
answer, were it not that its absurdity is absolutely increased 
when made with reference to the Church of Ireland ; for 
how long has the Church of Ireland enjoyed — I will not say 
prosperity — but even a moderate share of the support of 
government? Let us look to history. 

In the reign of Charles I. we find the convocation of the 
Church of Ireland stating, in a petitioa to the King,*^ that 
**in all the Christian world the rural Clergy have not been 

^ See, for a most triumphant refutation of the calumnies heaped upon 
the Irish Clergy in this respect, the late Bishop of Limerick's speech in 
the House of Lords, June 10, 1824. That ever to be lamented prelate 
concludes this portion of his speech in a manner peculiarly happy, and, 
I may say, pecuharly his own; The case stands thus : Irishmen know 
the Irish Clergy to be at home ; Englishmen know the Irish Clergy not 
to he in this country. The Irish Clergy are Tio^ to be missed in Ireland; 
they are not to be found in England. The conclusion, therefore, is ob- 
vious and irresistible; that the Iri^h Clergy are where they ought to be;, 
at their posts, and engaged in the performance of their sacred duties.'^ 
— Practical Theology, ii, p. 347. 

Among the Earl of Strafford's Letters. 



THEIR CAUSE DEFENDED. 



119 



reduced to such extremity of contempt and beggary as in 
this kingdom, by the means of appropriations, commendams, 
and violent intrusions into their undoubted rights, in times 
of confusion— having their Churches ruined, their habita- 
tions left desolate, their glebes concealed, and, by inevitable 
consequence, an invincible necessity of general non-resi- 
dency, v^hereby, the ordinary subject hath been left wholly 
destitute of all possible means to learn true piety to God." 
It had been said a few years before, by Sir Henry Sidney 
to Queen Elizabeth, that '* on the face of the earth, where 
Christ was professed, there was not a Church in so misera- 
ble a case." And so it continued to be down to the middle 
of the last century. And what was the consequence ? The 
advance of Protestantism? No, assuredly; but the increase 
of that which is at the present day the great curse of that 
country — of that which has turned judgment into gall, and 
the fruit of righteousness into hemlock — of Popery ; of Popery, 
which, in opposition to the Church, was maintained by Spanish 
and Italian gold,® and was patronised by those factions, the 
leaders of which were in possession of the best part of the 
ecclesiastical property^ — the increase, I say, of Popery, 

ePhelan, ii. 294. 

^The origin of the support which was afterwards given to Popery by 
the Irish aristocracy, who, together with the people and Clergy, at first 
so quietly and happily acquiesced in the Reformation, may be seen in 
Phelan, p. 167-176. " From time to time," he says, at p. 174, '* Eliza- 
beth sent instructions to her Irish government, to proceed with vigour in 
breaking the power of the nobles r deep and general discontent among 
them was the natural consequence, and from discontent it was, in those 
days, an easy transition to insurrection. Having determined to rebel, 
they wisely made religion their ostensible grievance : the pretext was 
plausible ; it would strengthen their confederacy, engage the simple and 
superstitious in their cause, and help to conceal from all, the true sources 
of Irish calamity ; accordingly they became the champions of religion. 
Formerly, when they had' once resolved to obey the King, they made no 



120 



THE CATHOLIC CLERGY OF IRELAND; 



until it was permitted to take that hold on the aiFections of 
the lower orders, that with them the cause of Popery, and 
the cause of their country, as distinguished from the rest of 
the empire, are now identified. And to this state of things 
the advocates of Popery would, of course, gladly return — 
and to effect this purpose they are now using all their en- 
deavours. For they know full well, that if the Church of 
Ireland has that countenance from Government which it has 
a right to expect, their cause will be lost. 

It was not, as I have stated, till the middle of the last cen- 
tury, that the Irish Church received the support it deserved 
— it was not till the commencement of the present century, 
until the two Churches, as well as the two kingdoms, were 
united, that it had, if I may venture upon the expression, 
any thing like fair play. And of its progress since that period 
we possess the most satisfactory documents. For instance, 
at the time of the Union there were in Ireland 1000 Clergy- 
men, there are now above 2000 ;S and surely the increase of 
the Clergy could only have been occasioned by an increased 
demand for their services; especially as of these 800 are 
curates— again, in 1800 there were not above 300 glebe 
houses — there are now above 900 ; but the strongest fact of 
all is this, that whereas in the year 1800 there were only 639 
Churches in Ireland, there are now 1,338, besides schools 

scruple to renounce the Pope; knowing- that, thereby, they would lower 
tlie tone of a domineering- priesthood: now, on the other hand, they had 
resolved to oppose the crown, and therefore affected a zeal for the Pa- 
pacy." In the hands of Irish laymen there are 1480 glebes once belong- 
ing to the Church, 562 impropriate rectories, and 118 parishes wholly 
impropriate; making in all 680 parishes. The amount derived from 
tithes by laymen is said to be £300,000 a year. See Important Facts, 
p. 4. 

sSee Important Facts, pp. 6, 7. The tables are there given, which 
have been corrected up to the present time^ from documents published 
in the " British Magazine." 



THEIR CAUSE DEFENDED. 



121 



used for public worship where no Churches have been 
erected, to the number of 196, making in all 1,534, while, 
according to the report of the commissioners, many apphca- 
tions for new Churches are constantly made. It is not then 
because the Church as at present established and endowed 
is inefficient^ but because it is too efficient, that those fac- 
tions are armed against it, whose object is, if Papists, the 
estabhshment of Popery; if not Papists, the advancement of 
infidelity, which, where Popery prevails, universally gains 
ground. 

The latest and newest, and what to all appearance is the 
most decisive — as it is certainly the most cruel method of 
attack devised — is that which has been the cause of our 
coming together on the present occasion ; the attempt, as it 
has been well described, to starve the Church out of Ireland, 
by withholding from the Clergy all their rights and dues; an 
attempt which I trust the zeal and benevolence of England 
will frustrate and defy.^ 

^This endeavor to starve Protestantism out of Ireland has not the 
charm of novelty, as the following passage from Leland, vol. iii. p. 542, 
will show: We were at a loss," saith Archbishop King, what the 
meaning of taking away corn from the Protestant farmers, housekeepers, 
and bakers should be, when there was no scarcity in the kingdom. But 
Sir Robert Parker and some others babbled it out in a coffee-house, that 
they designed to starve one-half of the Protestants, and hang the other ; 
and that it would never be well till this were done. We were sensible 
that they were in earnest by the event, — for no Protestant could get a 
bit of bread, and hardly a drop of drink, in the whole city of Dublin. 
Twenty or thirty soldiers stood constantly about every bakehouse, and 
would not suffer a Protestant to come near them. Such representa- 
tions," continues the historian, ''are sometimes derided as fictions of an 
inflamed party. But, however improbable these instances of senseless 
tyranny may appear, they are confirmed by the undoubted traditions re- 
ceived from sufferers, and transmitted with every circumstance of credi- 
bility." These things took place in the, reign of James the Second. 
11 



122 THE CATHOLIC CLERGY OF IRELAND; 



But it is not only of the attacks and manoeuvres of her 
avowed enemies, that the Church of Ireland has to complain. 

Perhaps I may be pardoned for making another quotation from the 
same author. " The Protestant Clergy were, by this time^ deprived for 
the most part of their subsistence. They could recover no dues from 
non-conformists — for these were, by the late act for liberty of Con- 
science, exempted from the jurisdiction of the Ecclesiastical Courts. 
They could demand no tithes from the numerous body of Roman Catho- 
lics — while Popish Incumbents, who every day multiplied by death, 
cession, or absence of Protestants, exacted them from all parties. Yet, 
in the day of j^iersecution, both Clergy and laity felt an unusual fervour 
of devotion, and crowded to their places of worship. The Popish 
Government was ottended, and probably alarmed, at these meetings. A 
proclamation was issued, confining Protestants to their respective 
parishes, which, in etiect, excluded great numbers from public wor- 
shipj as, in several parts of Ireland, two parishes or more had but one 
Church.'' Leiand, vol. iii. p. ,544. However absurd it may be to sup- 
pose, as those orators will persuade us, who attend rather to the pomp 
of words than to the truth of things, that it would be possible for the 
Papists to repeat in these days the atrocities practised in the reign of 
Queen }>IaLy, yet it is by no means absurd to dread the repetition of such 
miseries as those described above ; so far otherwise the passages quoted 
from Leiand might, with very little alteration, be received as descriptive 
of passing events — save that the Papists were then encouraged by the 
mistaken piety, and now by the sinful indifference, of our civil governors. 
However much their mode of application may vary, the principles of 
Popery remain the same, and those principles are, as the learned and 
candid Franciscan Father AValsh admits, as follows; — **That the ad- 
vancement of Christ's kingdom, i. e. of the Papal Church, being the 
great consummation of the Divine will. a.iJ the e-d of human existence, 
all particular laws of God, of nature or of civil society^ must be regu- 
lated by it; that, therefore, actions otherwise criminal — such asperjurj^, 
treason, or murder, may by a new relation to this supreme law, change 
their moral character: that heresy, being directly subversive of Christ's 
kingdom, is an infamous crime, which annihilates all rights, and is suffi- 
cient to exclude men from all civilized communion : that the Pope is the 
supreme authoritv', both in spiritual and temporal things, ha\*ing the 



THEIR CAUSE DEFENDED. 



123 



She suffers not less from the indifference, the carelessness 
the lukewarmness — to use no stronger terms — of those who 
profess to be her political friends. And as, perhaps, less of 
sympathy is felt for the Irish Clergy, and certainly more 
allowance made for the excesses of the Roman priesthood in 
that country, from an ignorance of the relative position of 
the two parties, to this subject I proceed to request your 
attention. 

Judging from the colloquial language of the day, it would 
seem to be the prevailing opinion, that at the time of the 
Reformation, an old Church was turned out, and a new 
Church brought in ; — that of the old Church, the Papists are 
the representatives, as the Protestants are the descendants 
of the intruders. Now this is just what the Papists desire 
you to concede ; for they know full well that there is always 
som.e allowance made for those who, in contending, are con- 
power of both swords, particularly in countries where the civil authority' 
has lapsed by heresy: that the Clergy^ being the immediate sen'ants of 
the Pope, are exempt, both in person and property, from the jurisdiction 
of secular tribunals." — Phelan, ii. 330. That we should regard with 
more than ordinary suspicion a sect in which such tenets are avowed, is 
certainly not surprising. Nor is the expression of our fears to be silenced 
by any reference to the tolerant conduct of Papists in foreign parts. The 
lion may be gentle as a lamb, when, not tem.pted by hunger, he is un- 
provoked and unopposed. And so, where Popery is dominant, and 
Protestantism is lukewarm, Popery may assume an aspect of meekness 
and benevolence;— not because its principles are changed, but because 
it has no occasion to act upon them. It is when Poper\' is aggressive, 
when it is contending for the masten,' — as is now the case in Ireland — 
when its policy is to put down Protestantism, that we dread the conse- 
quence of principles which, though not always acted on, have never yet 
been renounced. We may admit, that the Romish Church may be as 
the American savage, a tender parent, — what we complain of is, that, 
as an enemy, she has recourse to wicked, and unlawful, and cruel modes 
of warfare. 



124 



THE CATHOLIC CLERGY OF IRELAND; 



tending only for what was once their own. And this con- 
cession is always virtually made — so great is the force of 
words — whenever we give or permit them to assume the 
almost sacred title of Catholics. The property of the Church 
of Ireland, they argue, once belonged to the Catholics ; we 
are Catholics, and, therefore, if all men had their rights, that 
property would be ours. And how is this argument to be 
met — ^especially by those who deny the right of the state 
to seize the property which, by various private bequests, 
has been given to the Church? how — but by positively 
denying the justice of their claim to be called the Catholics 
of Ireland, and by proving, as we can prove, and as, by 
God's blessing I now intend to prove, that in appropriating 
that title, they are guilty of taking what does not belong to 
them? To ]5rove this, we must have recourse again to 
history. 

Of the first introduction of Christianity into Ireland, we 
have no authentic records, nor is it necessary to search for 
them — since, of the present Church, the founder, under 
God, was St. Patrick. From him it is that the Protestant 
Clergy can — and only they — trace their succession, and 
through him, from the Apostles themselves. That, by a 
regular series of consecrations and ordinations, the succession 
from Patrick and Palladius, and the first Irish missionaries, 
was kept up until the reign of Elizabeth, our enemies will, 
themselves, allow.^ The question therefore is, whether that 
succession was at that time lost. And this we defy our 
adversaries to prove. It is a well known.fact, that, of all the 
countries of Europe, there was not one in which the process 
of the Reformation was carried on so regularly, so canoni- 
cally, so quietly, as it was in Ireland.^ Carte, the biographer 

'The "History of the Irish Bishops," from the time of St: Patrick^ 
is written by Sir James Ware. 

^ Phelan, ii. 131. ]38. — It is remarkable that the only peaceful period 
of Irish history was that at which the supremacy of the Pope was re- 



THEIR CAUSE DEFENDED. 



125 



of Ormond, having observed that the popish schism did not 
commence in England until the twelfth year of Queen Ehza- 
beth's reign/ but that for eleven years those who most fa- 

nouPxCed. So universal was the tranquillity, that a considerable body of 
troops was spared for the King's service before Boulogne, while another 
force of three thousand men was sent into Scotland, to the aid of the 
ord Lennox. 

^ " The Romish sect in England at first was governed by Jesuits 
and missionary priests, under the superintendence of Allan, a Roman 
Cardinal, who lived in Flanders, and founded the colleges at Douay and 
Rheims. In 1593, Mr. George Blackwall was appointed Arch-Friest 
of the English Romanists, and this form of Ecclesiastical government 
prevailed amongst them till 1623, when Dr. Bishop was ordained titu- 
lar Bishop of Chalcedon, and sent from Rome to govern that Society in 
England. Dr. Smith, the next Bishop of Chalcedon, was banished in 
1629, and the Romanists were without bishops till the reign of James 
II." — (See the History of this Sect, by Dodd.) — Palmer^ii. 252. 

Mr. Butler, following Dodd's Church History," says of the Roman 
priests in England, that many of them conformed for a while, in hopes 
that the Queen would relent, and. things come round again," — Memoirs, 
ii. p. 280. "He may be right," says Dr. Phelan, ''in complimenting 
their orthodoxy at the expense of their truth : yet it is a curious circum- 
stance, that their hypocrisy, while it deceived a vigilant and justly sus- 
picious Protestant Government, should be disclosed by the tardy can- 
dour of their own historians." The admission, however, as it respects 
both England and Ireland, is most important. Romanism having at one 
period become extinct in these islands, and the present sect being one 
which commenced at a later date, their clergy, however valid their orders, 
can now have no pretence to mission. The difference between order 
and mission is not generally understood, even among sound episcopa- 
lians. It is thus explained by ]Mr. Palmer : — " It is essential that the 
true ministers of God should be able to prove that they have not only the 
power but the right of performing sacred offices: — There is an evident 
difference between these things, as may be seen in the following cases. 
If a regularly ordained priest should celebrate the Eucharist in the Church 
of another, contrary to the will of that person and of the bishop, he would 
11* 



126 THE CATHOLIC CLERGY OF IRELAND; 



vom-ed the pretensions of the Pope conformed to the reformed 
Catholic Church of England, remarks, ''the case was much 
the same in Ireland, where the Bishops complied with the 
Reformation, and the Roman Catholics" (meaning, of course, 
those who afterwards became Roman ^ instead of remaining 
Protestant Catholics) "resorted in general to the parish 
churches in which the English service was used, until the 
end of Queen Elizabeth's reign." Now^, mark here, it is 
said that the Bishops of the Church of Ireland — that is, as 
our adversaries will admit, the then successors of St. Patrick 
and his suffragans, those who had the right to reform the 
Church — consented to the Reformation ; and that until the 
end of Queen Elizabeth's reign, and she reigned above forty- 
four years, there was no opposition Church in that country 
under the dominion of the Pope. Altar had not yet been 
raised against altar by the Pope and his agents, contrary to 
the canons of the Church universal. But our author goes 
further : he tells us the origin of the existing popish sect. 
" Swarms of Jesuits," he continues, "and priests educated in 
the seminaries founded by king Philip II. in Spain and the 
Netherlands, and by the cardinal of Lorraine in Champagne, 
(where, pursuant to the views of the founders, they sucked 
in as well the principles of rebellion, as of what they call 
Catholicity,) coming over to that kingdom as full of secular 
as of religious views, they soon prevailed with an ignorant 
and credulous people to withdraw from the pubhc service of 
the Church."^ Here, then, we have the history of the 

have the power of consecrating the Eucharist, it actually would be con- 
secrated, but he would not have the right of consecrating", — or, in other 
words he would not have mission for that act. If a bishop should enter 
the diocese of another bishop, and, contrary to his will, ordain one of 
his deacons to the priesthood, the intruding bishop would have the power 
but not the right of ordaining, he would have no mission for that act," 
^ii. 247. 

'^Life of Ormondf i. 32. 



THEIR CAUSE DEFENDED. 



127 



introduction of the existing popish sect into Ireland-— we 
have seen before why they prospered — they being supported 
by foreign potentates,"^ while the national Church was robbed 
of all her rights, and unsupported by the national govern- 
ment. Nor is this a mere party statement, as may be seen 
by reference to L eland, the historian, or even to bishop 
Berrington,° a popish prelate in England ; the fact is univer- 
sally admitted to have been as it has just been narrated. So 
then the case stands thus: — the existing Irish clergy can 
trace their succession up to the bishops of Queen Elizabeth, 
under whom the old Church was reformed, not a new one 
introduced; and the bishops of Elizabeth's reign, by the ad- 
mission of our adversaries, were the successors of St. Patrick 
and the other first planters of the Church in Ireland; while 
the present Popish priests and prelates can only trace their 

"During the whole of the reign of James, and part of the following 
reign, the (Romish) priesthood of both islands were in the interest, and 
many of them in the pay, of the Spanish monarchy. The titulars of 
Dublin and Cashel are particularly mentioned as pensioners of Spain; the 
general memorial of the Irish (Roman) hierarchy in 1617, was ad- 
dressed to the Spanish court ; and we are told by Bishop Bovington (a 
Romanist) that the English Jesuits, 300 in number, were * all of the 
Spanish faction.'" — Plielan, ii. 294. 

^ Meinoirs of Gregorio Panzani — Introduction, Mr. Palmer 
observes: The Irish bishops almost unanimously consented, in the be- 
ginning of Queen Elizabeth's reign, to remove the jurisdiction of the 
Roman Pontiff. See Leland's History of Ireland, book iv. ch. 1. — The 
consequence was, that for a length of time there were scarcely any Popish 
bishops in Ireland. Macgarran, titular Archbishop of Armagh, was 
sent over from Spain, and slain in the act of rebellion against his sove- 
reign. In 1621, we are informed by O'Sullivan^ Hist. Cath. Iberniie, 
that there were two Popish bishops in Ireland, and two others resided 
in Spain. These persons were ordained in foreign countries, and could 
not trace their ordinations to the ancient Irish Church." — Origines 
IMurgiccej ii, 25.2,» 



128 



THE CATHOLIC CLERGY OF IRELAND; 



succession from certain foreign bishops who came over in 
the reign of James 1. The clergy, therefore, of the Church 
of Ireland are the successors of the Apostles in that country, 
to whom, and to whom alone, belong both order and mission, 
both the power and the right to minister in sacred things : 
they are the Catholic clergy of that countiy — protestani 
Catholics, if you will — Catholics, who protest against the 
usurpations of the Pope of Rome, and the abominable prac- 
tices of his adherents, but still the true Catholics of Ireland. 

But here the adversary will object: '-Admitting that you 
have both order and mission, still ours are the doctrines 
which were originally held by the Irish Church, and for the 
promulgation of which that Church was established and 
endowed/' This is easily saicU but how will it bear the his- 
torical probe?- Did the founder, under God, of the Irish 
Church.— Did St. Patrick, as the Church of Rome now does, 
declare that '-if any man shall say'*— I am quoting a canon 
of the council of Trent— that the clergy may contract 
marriages, or that such marriages are valid, let him be ac- 
cursed iihehad done so, he would have been guilty of 
little less than parricide, while bastardizing himself, — he 
himself being the son of a deacon, and the grandson of a 
priest,^ — and we know, moreover, that he could not have 
done this, from the existence of a canon attributed perhaps 
incorrectly to him. but certainly of very ancient date, regu- 
lating the conduct of the wives of ecclesiastics!' Again, — 
did he prohibit the perusal of Scripture ? Surely not; since 
it is stated by Fenelon, that no such prohibition existed any 

PConc. Trent. Sess. xxiv. c. 9. 

•5 S. Patiicii Confessio TvIS. quoted by Abp. Usher. Religion of the 
Ancient Irish, chap. v. 

r Synod. Patric. Auxil. Issemin. Even in the 12th centurj' the Irish 
refused to receive an unmarried clerg}'. and were pronounced to be here- 
tics on that account by Pope Adrian. — Phelan ii. 55. 



THEIR CAUSE DEFENDED. 



129 



where before the 12th century, nor do we find any Canon on 
the subject in the Irish code.^ Did he introduce the wor- 
ship of images ? This could hardly have been the case, for 
he flourished about the year 431 ; and the very first council 
which gave sanction to that heresy was held in the year 787, 
when the clergy of Ireland united with the Clergy of Eng- 
land in doing what they do now, in protesting against the evil 
and idolatrous practice.^ Once more, — did he pronounce, as 
is done by the modern Church of Rome, that if "any man 
say"^I am again quoting a canon of the Council of Trent — 

* His words are worthy of note: "I think," says this illustrious pre- 
late, "that much trouble has been taken in our times very unnecessarily 
to prove what is incontestible, that, in the first ages of the Church, the 
laity read the Holy Scriptures. It is as clear as dayhght, that all peo- 
ple read the Bible and Liturgy in their native languages: that as a 
part of good education, children were made to read them; that in their 
sermons, the ministers of the Church regularly explained to their flocks 
whole books of the sacred volume ; that the sacred text of the Scriptures 
was very familiar to the people ; that the clergy exhorted the people to 
read them; that the clergy blamed the people for not reading them, and 
considered the neglect of reading ikem as a source of heresy and im- 
morality." The venerable prelate then proceeds to justify the Roman 
Church, and ather Churches in communion with her, for restricting the 
perusal of Scripture, on the grounds only of expediency. On this sub- 
ject we do not now enter, — it is sufficient for us, so far as the present 
argument is concerned, that the concession is made in our favor of 
primitive practice by one so justly celebrated. QEuvres Spirituels de 
Fenelon, 8vo. tom. iv. p. 241, quoted and translated by Charles Butler. 
— Confessions of Faith, p. 142. 

^ To avoid crowding the page with references, I will refer the reader 
for proof of my assertions, except when a special reference is given, to 
Bishop Taylor's admirable Dissuasive against Popery, forming Vols. 
X. and XI. of Heber's edition ; to the third book and the Appendix of 
Field on the Chtirch; and to Archbishop Usher's Religion of tlx% 
Ancient Irish. 



130 THE CATHOLIC CLERGY OF IRELAND; 



"that in the holy Sacrament of the Eucharist there remains 
the substance of bread and wine, let him be accursed.? No, 
— for this doctrine of transubstantiation was not dreamed of 
till the eighth century: in the ninth and tenth centuries it 
was still disputable; and when in the thirteenth, the Pope 
of Rome sought to have it recognized in an Italian council, 
the doctrine was opposed by many divines, and protested 
against by the Clergy of England and Ireland; and though 
it was afterwards embraced by many of our theologians, and 
by them assumed to be the doctrine of the Church, yet it 
was never sanctioned by an English or Irish synod.^ Yet 
further, — did he withhold the cup from the people, and thus 
virtually deprive them of a sacrament of our Lord? This 
was undoubtedly not the case, for at the Council of Con- 
stance, in the fifteenth century, wherein an enactment was 
made to that effect, it was admitted to be a regulation not 
only contrary to Scripture, but also opposed to primitive 
tradition.5' Neither could he have taught the Roman doc- 
trine of Purgatory,'^ for he had been dead a thousand years 
before that doctrine was acknowledged as an article of faith 
by any portion of the Church. Certainly, then, the founder 
of the Irish Church did not introduce the more important of 
those doctrines by which the Church of Rome, and the 

" Cone. Trent. Sess. XIII. c. 2. 

^ The gradual introduction of the doctrine of transubstantiation may 
be seen, in Dr. Vvaterland's Charge on the Sacramental Part of the 
Eucharist. 

^ Council Constant. Sess. XIIL. 

^ The gradual introduction of the doctrine of purgatory may be seen 
in the authors before referred to, and in Bishop Bull, Serm. III. The 
reasoning of the Council of Trent is singular: without any appeal to 
Scripture, it determines, that since the mass taught that that sacrifice 
was expiatory for the dead, nondum ad plenum purgatis, the doctrine of 
purgatory was sufficiently settled. 



THEIR CAUSE DEFENDED. 



131 



churches aod sects which hold communion with her, are at 
present distinguished from the rest of Christendom ; nor 
could they have been introduced by any of his successors till 
a late period, because with respect to most of them, till a 
period comparatively late, they had no existence in the 
minds of men. We may proceed to ask, what doctrines he 
held which we do not now hold, or what practices did he 
permit that we should condemn ? — provided that since his 
time those practices, innocent in themselves, have not been 
abused to the purposes of superstition. Did the primitive 
Catholic Christians of Ireland, while they held the Scrip- 
tures to be the sole rule of faith, receive with deference the 
opinion of the universal Church as their guide for the pro- 
per interpretation of Scripture 1 So do we; for our Clergy 
are enjoined "not to teach any thing as a matter of faith to 
be religiously observed, but that which is agreeable to the 
Old and New Testament, and may be collected out of the 
same doctrine by the ancient fathers and CathoUc bishops of 
the Church."* Was deference paid to the decisions of coun- 
cils really general, of councils summoned not by the Pope 
but by the Emperor, and open to all the Bishops of the 
Church in the east, as well as in the west ? So do we : we 
admit the four first councils, the only councils that can be 
proved to have been really open and general, to be, together 
with the plain words of Scripture, the rule and measure of 
judging heresies.^ Did they receive the Apostles' Creed, the 
Nicene Creed, without the additions made by Pope Pius 
IV. ,^ and the symbol of St. Athanasius ? This is precisely the 
case with us. But the adversary thinks that he can confound 
us by asking whether they received our thirty-nine articles. 
In other words, he asks whether we can prove that they 

^Canons of 1571. b i ei^^. 

^i. e. Without the peculiar, the distinguishing articles of faith ap- 
pended to it by the Church of Rome. 



132 



THE CATHOLIC CLERGY OF IRELAND; 



protested against certain heresies, before those errors had 
occurred, or those heretical opinions been started. Unless 
they had been gifted with the spirit of prophecy, this, of 
course, they could not have done. But the objection is 
founded on a misconception as to what our articles are and 
profess to be. They do not profess to be a complete system 
of divinity, they are merely styled Articles agreed upon by 
the Archbishops and Bishops of both provinces, and the 
whole Clergy of England, for the avoiding of diversities of 
opinions and for the establishing of consent touching true 
religion." In short, they are nothing more than the expres- 
sion of an English synod, as to certain controverted doctrines 
and certain general principles, without subscribing to which 
ecclesiastics are prohibited by the English Bishops from 
officiating within the boundaries of their jurisdiction. That 
our Church is not to be identified with a reception of the 
thirty-nine articles is clear from this fact, that the Church 
of Ireland was in full communion with the Church of Eng- 
land during the reigns of Elizabeth and James, although it 
was not till the reign of Charles I. that the articles were 
subscribed by the Clergy of the former country and the 
same may be said of the Episcopal Church of Scotland, by 
which they were only adopted at the close of the last cen- 
tury. Thus our articles are not what the articles of the 
Council of Trent are, additional articles of faith, — we do 
require our teachers and preachers to pledge themselves not 
to preach or teach doctrines contrary to what are therein 
contained, but wx do not require their adoption as the condi- 
tion of communion, — we do not say, as the Papist does, with 
reference to the articles of faith adopted in 1545 by the 
Council of Trent, that without professing them, no man can 
be saved. But while the objection of the Papist thus falls 
to the ground, we may in our turn, take an offensive atti-^ 

d 1634. Leland, vol. ii. pp. 27, 28. 



THEIR CAUSE DEFENDED. 



133 



tude, and demand whether the primitive Cathohcs of Ireland, 
the predecessors of the present Protestant Clergy, received 
the Creed of Pope Pius IV. — the distinguishing Creed at 
the present time of Romanism ? The answer may be given 
at once, by reference to what has been before stated in this 
discourse.® 

^ The creed of Pope Pius IV. the distinguishing creed of the PLoman 
Church— the enforcement of which creed has separated that Church, in 
fact, from the Catholic Church of Christ — was not published till the 
year 1564, two years after the date of our Thirty-nine Articles. In this 
Creed all the corrupt opinions against which we protested and legislated, 
are adopted as Articles of Faith. IMany things may have been taught 
in the Church before the Reformation, which we now know to be erro- 
neous' — but they were not insisted upon as Articles of Communion, till 
the Council of Trent. It was then that Romanism assumed the secta- 
rian character. The following are the Articles appended to the Xicene 
Creed by Pope Pius IV. — I most firmly admit and embrace Apostoli- 
cal and Ecclesiastical traditions, and all other constitutions and obser- 
vances of the same Church. I also admit the sacred Scriptures, accord- 
ing to the sense which the Holy2\Iother Church has held, and does hold, 
to whom it belongs to judge of the true sense and interpretation of the 
Holy Scriptures ; nor will I ever take and interpret them otherwise than 
according to the unanimous consent of the Fathers. I confess also that 
there are truly and properly seven Sacraments of the New Law instituted 
by Jesus Christ our Lord, and for the salvation of mankind, though all 
are not necessary for every one ; viz. baptisni, confirmation, eucharist, 
penances, extreme unction, orders, and matrimony, and that they confer 
grace ; and of these baptism, confirmation, and orders cannot be reiterated 
without sacrilege. I also receive and admit the ceremonies of the Catho- 
lic Church received and approved in the solemn administration of all the 
above said Sacraments. I receive and embrace all and every one of the 
things which have been defined and declared in the Holy Council of 
Trent, concerning original sin and justification : I confess, hkewise, that 
in the mass is offered to God, a true, proper, and propitiator}' sacrifice 
for sin, the living and the dead; and that in the most holy Sacrament of 
the Eucharist there is truly, really, and substantially, the body and blood, 

12 



134 THE CATHOLIC CLERGY OF IRELAND; 



In like maoner, when it is asked whether the primitive 
Cathohcs of Ireland used one common Prayer and Litm-gy, 
we can answer in the first place, that we may be sure that 
whatever prayers they used, they prayed in the vulgar tongue, 
not only because it was the universal practice, but because 

together with the soul and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ; and that 
there is made a conversion of the whole substance of the bread into the 
body, and of the whole substance of the wine into the blood, of Christ, 
which conversion the (Roman) Catholic Church calls transubstantiation. 
I confess also, that under either kind alone, whole and entire. Christ 
and a true Sacrament is received. I constantly hold that there is a 
purgatory, and that the souls therein are helped by the suffrages of the 
faithful. Likewise that the saints, reigning together with Christ, are to 
be honored and invocated; that they offer prayers to God for us, and 
that their relics ^are to be venerated. I most firmly assert, that the 
images of Christ, and of the ?dother of God ever Virgin, and also of the 
other Saints, are to be had and retained ; and that due honor and vene- 
ration are to be given to them. I also affirm, that the power of indul- 
gences was left by Christ in the Church, and that the use of them is 
most wholesome to Christian people. I acknowledge the Holy Catholic 
Apostolic Roman Church, the mother and mistress of all Churches; and 
I promise and swear true obedience to the Roman Bishop, the successor 
of St. Peter, Prince of the Apostles and Vicar of Jesus Christ. I also 
profess and undoubtedly receive all other things delivered, defined, and 
declared by the Sacred Canons and General Councils, and particularly 
by the Holy Council of Trent ; and likewise, I also condemn, leject, and 
anathematize all things contraiy thereto, and all heresies whatsoever con- 
demned and anathematized by the Church. This true Catholic (Rom^an) 
faith, out of which none can be saved, wh'ch I n<nv freely profess and 
truly hold, I, promise, vow, and swear most constantly to hold and 
profess the same whole and entire, with God's assistance unto my life's 
end. Amen," I have transcribed this Creed of 1564 as transla.ted by 
Mr. Butler, p. 9, that the reader may have before his eyes the new 
articles of faith and communion which the Roman Church has added to 
the old Creeds, that we still retain, but which were unknown to the ori- 
ginal Catholic Churches of these islands. 



THEIR CAUSE DEFENDED. 



135 



so late as the thirteenth century, it was decreed in a 
council at Rome itself, "that because in most parts within 
the same city and diocese, the people of divers tongues 
are mixed together, having under one and the same faith, 
divers ceremonies and rites, that the Bishops of such 
cities and dioceses should provide men fit, who may cele- 
brate Divine service according to the diversity of ceremonies 
and languages, and administer the Sacraments of the Church, 
instructing them both by word and example.''^ Now this 
clearly shows that even at Rome itself, the manufactory, the 
storehouse, the foundry of all modern innovations, the inno- 
vation of prohibiting the use of the language understood by 
the people, had not as yet taken place ; and if not there, then 
we may be sure that it prevailed no where else. 

We can answer, in the next place, in the words of our 
most distinguished ritualist: " the English Prayer-book was 
not composed in a few years, or by a few men : it has de- 
scended to us with the improvements and approbation of 
many centuries; and they who feel the value and sublime 
elevation of our hymns and prayers, participate in the spirit 
of primitive devotion. The great majority of our formu- 
laries are actually translated from Latin and Greek Rituals, 
which have been used for the last fourteen or fifteen hundred 
years in the Christian Church: and there is scarcely a por- 
tion of our Prayer-book which cannot in some Vv'ay be traced 
to ancient offices. We may answer, thirdly, that we know 
it is a fact that the Roman offices, (differing though they did 
then from what they are now.) were not adopted in Ireland 
till the year of our Lord 1171, and that even then they 
could not be introduced without artifice and manoeuvre.^ 

Again, when it is said that, before the Reformation, the 
supremacy of the Church of Ireland rested with the Pope 
of Rome, let us see what this amounts to. In the 12th cen- 
^ Bishop Taylor, x. 170. ^ Palmer, vol. i Preface. 

^Archbishop Usher, chap. iv. pp. 350, 549. 



136 



THE CATHOLIC CLERGY OF IRELAND; 



tury, the Pope asserted that "Ireland, and all the islands 
upon which Christ the Sun of Righteousness had shone, 
belonged to the patrimony of St. Peter, and the Holy Roman 
Church.^ And this usurpation was acquiesced in by the 
ignorance of the people at large, and the wicked ambition of 
Henry the Second, who, in order to have a plea for invading 
Ireland, cared not to examine the principle which it involved. 
But does it follow that, because the Pope thus pretended to 
have what he really had not, and assumed the sovereignty not 
only of Ireland, but of every other island; and, because, in 
this usurpation, he was not immediately opposed, he ought 
to be our sovereign lord at the present moment ? No ; as- 
suredly, when his claims w^ere examined into, their absurdity 
was at once apparent, and they were considered as having 
been, from the beginning null and void. And so it was in 
spiritual affairs, the Pope usurped authority over the Irish 
Church, but not, as even modern Romanists admit, without 
many violent struggles, and many bitter conflicts, and much 
strife. Until the synod of Kells, in 1152, the Archbishops 
of Ireland never condescended to receive their palls from 
Rome; and down to the year 1315, a Popish author acknow- 
ledges that the Irish ecclesiastics took no oath to the Pope, 
that they never applied to the see of Rome, as the Roman 
Bishops in that country now do, for bulls of nomination, 
institution, or exemptions ; that they never appealed to Rome 
for the decision of ecclesiastical causes.^ So that the autho- 
rity of the Pope over that Church, as it was at first a usur- 
pation, so it was a usurpation gradual in its growth,— and a 
usurpation which the Church, in obedience to the canon of a 
general council, vras bound to cast off, as soon as it was enlight- 
ened as to the fact; for a canon of the third general council, that 
of Ephesus, in 431, decrees, "that none of the Bishops, most 

^ See the Letter of Adrian to Henry II. in Phelan, vol. ii. p. 51. 
^Phelan, ii. p. 94. 



THEIR CAUSE DEFENDED. 



137 



beloved of God, should assume any province that was not for- 
merly subject to him or his predecessors from the beginning ; 
and that, if any have assumed any Church, he should be forced 
to restore it, that so the canons be not transgressed, nor worldly 
pride be introduced under the mask of this sacred function." 

Now from all this it is quite clear that the existing Clergy 
of the Irish Church, whether we regard their order, their 
mission, or their doctrine, are the only legitimate successors 
of those by whom that Churcli was founded, and for whose 
support it was endowed. For my part, I am fully convinced 
that we might easily show (it has indeed been shown by the 
learned Dr. Field, ^) that the devisers and maintainers of the 
Romish doctrines were, even at the period of the Reforma- 
tion, only a faction, though a powerful faction, in the 
Church. But on this, as it is time to draw to a conclusion, 
I will not insist ; but by a strong license of supposition, J will 
grant that the Irish Church, just before the Reformation, 
was actually as deeply immersed in error as the Church of 
Rome is now ; that the errors then prevailing were not the 
mere errors of individuals, but that they had been actually 
sanctioned by the Church; I will grant all this, and still ask, 
what will the concession avail the Paij'ist? When Naaman 
the Syrian was cured of his leprosy, he was not, in strictness 
of speech, a new man— he was the same man as he had been 
the day before, though he who had been sick was now made 
whole. So, neither, was the Church of Ireland, after the 

^The title of Dr. Field's long and learned Appendix to his Third 
Book is as follows: — "An Appendix wherein it is clearly proved that 
the Latin or West Church, in which the Pope tyrannized, was, and con- 
tinued, a true orthodox and Protestant Church, and that the devisers and 
maintainers of Romish errors and superstitious abuses were only a fac- 
tion in the same, when Luther (not without the applause of all good 
men) published his Propositions against the Profane Abuses of Papal 
Indulgences.*' 
12* 



138 



THE CATHOLIC CLERGY OF IRELAND; 



Reformatiou, a new Church, but the old Church reformed, — 
the old Church restored to its primitive health and purity. 
The leprosy of Naaman, we are told, clave to his servant 
Gehazi. But surely the king of Syria would have laughed 
Gehazi to scorn, if he had stood before him and demanded all 
the honors, emoluments, and offices, of Naaman, for no other 
reason but because forsooth he^ Gehazi, was now afflicted 
with that disease of which Naaman had been cured. How 
precisely in the position of Gehazi is the Popish priesthood 
of Ireland placed, when for that body is claimed a right to 
the property of the Church, as the representatives of the ori- 
ginal proprietors. We know them, who they are, — the 
successors, not of St. Patrick, but of certain Spanish and 
Italian prelates, who, in the reign of James I. originated, 
contrary to thp Canons of the Church, the Romish sect ; for 
in that country it is only a sect, since there can be but one 
Church, and that is the Catholic, in the same place ; and all 
that they can pretend to is^ (conceding as I have conceded 
what, if not conceded, it wculd be impossible to extort^) that 
they now hold doctrines which the Church of Ireland may 
have held for one, two, three, at the very most four, out of 
the fourteen hundred years during which it has been estab- 
lished ; while, even, as a counterpoise to this, we may place 
the three hundred years which have elapsed between the 
E-eformation and the present time. 

And now I have done. I have pointed out to you who. 
tliey are for whom your kind consideration is requested. I 
may add, that they are confessors, (there have been even 
martyrs among them,) for the truth as it is in Jesus. How- 
ever some persons may be disposed to censure the Irish 
Cergyfor having submitted, without a protest, to the extinc- 
tion of ten bishoprics by a simple act of the Civil Legislature 
— a usurpation almost as great as any of which the Pope has 
been guilty ; however inclined they may be to, regard their 



THEIR CAUSE DEFENDED. 



139 



present calamities as a visitation for their supineness at that 
time ; certain it is that they have now at last made a gallant 
stand, and have shown their determination to prevent the 
gangrene from going further. Had they acquiesced in the 
godless measure proposed in the last session of parliament, 
by which the doors of eight hundred churches would have 
been closed, had they consented to betray the cause of their 
Saviour for a fevv' pieces of silver, they who are now suffer- 
ing the miseries of destitution, and the pangs of hunger, 
would be in comparative affluence and comfort. By reject- 
ing the unholy conipromise, they are involved in all that 
heart-rending distress which you are called upon to pity and 
relieve. 

Although they have felt an honorable reluctance to make 
their miseries public, althougii their stroke has thus been 
heavier than their groaning, yet with many of the details of 
their sufferings you must be already familiar. Already, I 
am sure, the hearts of those of the Clergy who are here 
present have glowed with sympathy, when they heard speak 
of brother Clerg^'meu obliged to sell their libraries for bread, 
and to recall their children from school to place them at the 
plough, and while grieving for the affliction of Josej^h, the 
thought must have occurred to them, that what has happen- 
ed in Ireland, may happen in England : already, I am sure, 
the family man must have sympathised with those who, with 
wounded spirits and disappointed hopes, have been compelled 
to renounce the assurances by which they had provided for 
the future exigencies of their household, and can now look 
forward to nothing but beggary for their wives and little 
ones, if, as in a lawless land is possible, they themselves be 
taken before this tyranny is overpast : the man of honour 
must have sympathised with honourable minds, weighed 
down by the pressure of debts incurred for the mere neces- 
saries of life, before the inability to pay became apparent : 



140 THE CATHOLIC CLERGY OF IRELAND, &c. 



all who have the cominon feelings of humanity must have 
sympathised witli whole families accustomed to the elegan- 
cies, the comforts, the reliuements of life, now deprived of 
all animal food, and regarding wheaten bread as a forbidden 
luxurv. As fellow Christians, our sympathies are yet more 
powerfully awakened in their behalf, by hearing with what 
courage and constancy, with what resignation and meekness, 
with what fortitude and patience, with what submissive 
piety, thev have borne all their weariness, and painfulness, 
and cares, and distractions, and fears, and sorrows ; for, by 
this token, we know that they have found a Comforter in 
him who. while He sanctifies, can elevate, control, and sus- 
tain the sinking but conliding heart. 

But I will not pursue the subject. I will merely remark, 
that, as I commenced this discourse by alluding to the appeal 
which was made to the primo-primitive Christians, in behalf 
of their starving brethren in Judea, so I will conclude it, by 
reminding yon how liberally that appeal was met by the 
Churches, especially of Antioch, 3Iacedonia, and Corinth. 
And with equal generosity I feel assured that the present 
appeal for the Clergy of Ireland will be answered by the 
Churchmen of England. And I ground my confidence on 
the fact, that ours are the same principles by which they 
vrere influenced: we are justified by the same faith, we ai'e 
redeemed by the same sacrifice, we are regenerated and 
renewed by the same blessed Spirit, we seek for grace 
through the same sacraments, we enjoy the same ministry, 
and the works by which we are preparing ourselves to join 
them in the Church triumphant are the fruits of the same 
sanctificatiou. and derive all their value from the same aton- 
ing blood by which they are sprinkled : the qualities and 
circumstances being thus the same, I am justified in antici- 
pating a result precisely similar. 



SERMON VIL 

53'0t)dtk0 of llomaniem; 

OR, POPERY REFUTED BY TRADITION. 



" But if any Man seem to be contentious, we have no such custoniy 
neither the Churches of God." — 1 Cor. xi. 16. 

NoTHi>'G can be more striking, nothiDg more perfect in 
its charity, than the manner in which, in the 8th chapter of 
this Epistle, and the 14th chapter to the Romans, St. Paul 
treats the weaker brethren, and directs that they should be 
treated by others. Would to God that in these days, those 
who esteem themselves, or are accounted by others, the 
stronger brethren, would act on this principle and walk by 
this rule ! 

Ho^vever learned, however mighty in the Scriptures, 
however skilful as critics or profound as metaphysicians, 
those persons may be who are usually denominated High 
Churchmen, they are regarded by many as weaker brethren, 
utterly ignorant of the Gospel. If it he so, if they are weaker 
brethren in the opinion of those who thus assume authority 
to decide, (sometimes, it must be admitted, without any 
great proficiency in theology,) let them receive that gentle 
treatment, that allow^ance for conscientious prejudices, that 
courtesy, consideration, and kindness which St. Paul recom- 
mends. If they are in error, let them be refuted by argu- 
ment; if they violate the regulations or principles of the 
Church of England, let the fact be proved and let them be 
suspended : but admonish them affectionately as brethren in 
Christ: do not resort to the arts of the profane: do not mis- 



142 



THE NOVELTIES OF ROMANISM; 



represent their principles, or ridicule that conduct which, 
however absurd it may appear to others, they believe to be 
pious : do not denounce them without hearing what they 
have to say, or without reading, with unprejudiced minds, 
what they may have written: do not attribute wrong motives 
to them : do not call them Jesuits in disguise : do not hold 
them up as persons desirous to deceive. For why should 
they wish to deceive you more than their accusers? Their 
principles are not those which lead to preferment : they can 
only maintain them because they believe them to be the 
truth as it is in Jesus.^ 

Among the heaviest of the charges which are brought 
against them, their regard for Antiquity and their respect 
for the Fathers is the most prominent. But what does this 
oiTence amount to ? 

^ We have certainly just cause to complain of the Religious Tract 
Society, although it is supported by many good and pious men, when 
we find it stated in a recent number of its Monthly Record," entitled 
" The Christian Spectator," that those who hold the principles advocated 
in the present discourse, are enemies to the cause of Christian Truth, 
more formidable than the Socialists; the Socialists being Atheistic 
sensualists. They are accused, with the Papists, of ''an intense dislike 
of the peculiar doctrines of scripture." Comparing them with avowed 
Infidels, the v/ork referred to, says : " it is not possible that the object 
of either party could be more plainly declared. The one would throw 
down the Christianity of ihe Bible, the other would dig up the founda- 
tions of Christianity altogether. These their purposes they loudly pro- 
claim and fiercely pursue. They have declared a war of extermination, 
and the inscription on the banner of both is, I will overturn, overturn, 
overtura." See the Christian Spectator for September 18, 1839, and 
the Rev. Wra. Dalhy^s Letter to the Editor of the British Magazine. 
However much in error the supporters of that Society may consider 
High Churchmen to be, they are surely going too far when they speak 
of them in such language as this. 



OR, POPERY REFUTED BY TRADITION. 



143 



Let me state, in a few words, what their principle is. In 
all questions of doctrine and practice which may arise in the 
Christian Church they fully admit that the first and last 
appeal lies to Holy Scripture. To the Law and to the Testi- 
mony ; if they speak not according to this word^ it is because 
there is no light in them. And where both parties agree in 
their interpretation of the words of Scripture, this appeal 
will bring all controversies to the most satisfactory determi- 
nation. The private Christian, looking into this true mirror, 
discovers the blemishes and defects in his own conduct; and 
the Church puts on her ornaments^ and is sanctified and 
cleansed by the Word. 

But a little observation will convince us that the contro- 
versies which arise in the Church can seldom be decided 
by this appeal. The records of past ages prove this, and 
daily experience shews it. Each party in a dispute claims 
Scripture for its own side, and, as the sense of Scripture, it 
zealously maintains its own interpretation. If there be, then, 
no further appeal, the question can never be decided. There 
is, therefore, another test, which, in the opinion of those I 
am defending, Scripture itself allows and sanctions, — the 
testimony of the Church from the beginning. And to this 
test St. Paul, in our text, sets us an example of making an 
appeal. We have no such custom^ neither the CJiurches of 
God. 

Thus these persons conceive that a way to peace is pro- 
vided in harmony with the common rule of life, and the law 
by which society is held together ; for how much of law and 
of the rules of society is based on precedent I They con- 
ceive that they act in the spirit of the Church of England; 
for it is plain to every one wiio has considered the language 
of the Church that a deference to antiquity pervades her 
Articles, forms the argument of some of her most instructive 
Homilies, and breathes through every portion of her Prayers: 



144 



THE NOVELTIES OF ROMANISM; 



they conceive that when they stand in the ways and see and 
ask for the old paths where is the good way that we may walk 
therein^ th.Qj act, as I have shewn, in accordance with a 
principle provided for us in Scripture, and in accordance 
with which St. Paul reasoned in the words of our text. 

Now this it is that induces them to study the writings of 
the primitive Fathers of the Church. There seems, how- 
ever, to be a prejudice against the very name of the Fathers; 
a prejudice which certainly was not felt by Ridley, or by 
Cranmer, or any of the learned and pious confessors and 
martyrs to whom we owe the Reformation of our Church. 
And why should it be felt now ? for, let me ask, who are 
the Fathers ? They are merely ancient writers who lived 
in the earlier ages of the Church. Now one would think 
that there coilld be no great sin in our venturing to read the 
works of these ancient authors. It is said that we ought to 
refer for our divinity to the Bible and the Bible only. God 
knows, my Brethren, that I wish the Bible were more ex- 
tensively read than it is, and no one can regret more than I 
do to find the Bible so generally superseded by tracts. But 
those very tracts are most diligently distributed by the very 
persons v/ho most vehemently blame us for venturing to read 
the Fathers. Nay, by those persons themselves these tracts 
are read : in many instances they are the fountains, not 
always surely the purest, from which they drink in their 
theology. But what is a tract? It is a little treatise or 
sermon composed by some person or persons, not, certainly, 
infallible. Now similar treatises and- sermons form the 
works of the Fathers. Both parties, then, you will observe, 
are tract readers, and why, should he who reads an ancient 
tract be blameworthy, while he who reads a modern tract 
is held worthy of praise ? But it is said the modern tracts 
are sound in doctrine, the ancient tracts are not so. And, 
let me ask, who says this ? Is it said by an infallible man ? 



OR, POPERY REFUTED BY TRADITION. 145 



What proof do you bring from Scripture that modern tracts 
must be sound in doctrine, and ancient tracts not so ? It is 
merely a matter of opinion, and when one man praises the 
ancient tracts to the disparagement of the modern, it is quite 
as probable that his opinion should be correct as that of 
another person who praises the modern tracts to the dis- 
paragement of the ancient : and more probable, if it is in the 
nature of truth to be better understood near to the fountain 
head, than after its transmission through many generations. 
Is it said that one is scriptural the other not scriptural ? 
This is only repeating the last assertion in a different form. 
If the tract contain any thing of doctrine more than an ex- 
tract from Scripture without note or comment— and then it 
is Scripture itself — it must be a deduction from or an expla- 
nation of Scripture, and we have just as much right to assert 
that the deduction made from Scripture in an ancient tract 
is scriptural, as another person has to make the same asser- 
tion as to a modern tract. Disagree with us, if you will, in 
your opinion of this matter — but why object to our principle 
while you adopt it in another form 1 We are both tract 
readers; the only diiference being that some of us go for 
these tracts to St. Chrysostom, St. Basil, and St. Athanasius, 
to whom our Prayer Book is indebted for much of its excel- 
lence; others to a modern Religious Tract Society, sanc- 
tioned, it may be, by what is called the religious world ; 
which is, nevertheless, no more infallible than the Church 
of Rome, though the members of both seem to rely on their 
traditions with undoubting confidence.^ 

^ By the religious world I mean that conventional union of sects and 
parties which is formed by those ,who agree to merge the distinctive 
features of every sect, (and when Churchmen belong to it, the distinctive 
features of the Church itself,) in order that they may insist in common 
upon what that world deems to be essential truth. But the question 
still occurs whether that world is competent to decide what part of the 
13 



146 



THE NOVELTIES OF ROMANISM ; 



But it is said, " Scripture is so plain, we will have the Bible 
and the Bible only: what need have we of the Fathers in 
addition ? this is to add to the word of God." Surely, we 
may answer, " Scripture is plain, and we, too, will have the 
Bible and the Bible only — what need have you of commen- 
tators? Their comment is an addition to the word of God." 
But the Bible having come down to us in a dead language, 
we do absolutely require some commentary to elucidate its 
diction and phraseology a translation is itself, to a certain 
extent, a commentary; it might easily be shewn how ours 
actually is so. Again, there is allusion in Scripture to many 
antiquated rites and customs ; and some acquaintance with 
the history and opinions of the age in which the New Testa- 
ment was written is important; here, then, we also require 
a commentary^. Is it said that you can get all this from a 
modern commentator? this is true, and one modern commen- 
tator may borrow his facts from another without reference to 
the original authority, and one may copy the mistakes of 
another, and hence false facts may become current in the 

Revelation of God is essential and what is not. Of this proposition 
those who are called High Churchmen hold the negative. The difficulty 
of their present position consists in the religious world having assumed 
that all pious persons must belong to it. But there are persons whose 
xeal for the cause of rehgion, whatever may be their faults, is ardent, 
but who at the same time refuse to subscribe to many of the traditional 
doctrines and some of the practices of the religious world. The mem- 
bers of the religious world cannot conceive the possibility of such per- 
sons being really pious and sincere : hence their hostility to them ; their 
real fault being their rejection of the tradition of- the religious world, the 
controversy of the present day having reference, in fact, to this one 
question: according to what tradition shall Scripture be interpreted? 
according to the tradition of the Church of Rome ? or according to the 
tradition of the religious world ? or according to the tradition of the 
primitive Church? — the latter being, as we contend, embodied in the 
formularies of the Church of England. 



OR, POPERY REFUTED BY TRADITION. 147 



world : but the first commentators must have gone to the 
contemporary writers, that is to say, to the Fathers. Even 
admitting, then, that it is a work of supererogation for us to 
consult the Fathers, to ascertain whether the modern com- 
mentators are correct, still there can be nothing sinful in 
doing so ; since for what you know of these things, you are 
as dependent upon the Fathers as we are, the difference being 
that you derive your information from secondary, we from 
primary sources. 

As to doctrine, it is said that the wisest and best plan is to 
make Scripture its own interpreter, by comparing spiritual 
things with spiritual. I have already said that this is ad- 
mitted by those who are complained of ; and who are more 
diligent than they in explaining one Scripture by another? 
But I have also shewn that after having done this, there are 
still many points on which we cannot come to an agree- 
ment, — aye, and important points, too. Now take any pas- 
sages or collection of the passages of Holy Scripture from 
which you and I deduce a different doctrine. What is it 
that any disputant does ? His favorite commentator is 
brought down from the shelf, and to him deference is paid. 
Why ? Because he is recognized as the organ expressing 
the sense, i. 6. the tradition of his own sect or school, just as 
a E-omish commentator expresses the sense, i. e. the tradi- 
tion of the Church of Rome. Is there any sin, then if the 
High Churchman (applying this conceded principle in a 
different manner) looks to the Fathers, not as an inspired 
authority, but to ascertain from their writings what was the 
meaning attached to the passage or passages under con- 
sideration in the first ages of the Church, before modern 
controversies were started. And what makes the value of 
these primitive writings the greater in this respect is, that 
the Fathers not only possessed many written documents 
now lost, but it was part of their religion, if I may so say, 



148 



THE NOVELTIES OF ROMANISM; 



to preserve the doctrine they had received in its purity from 
the Apostles, and to hand it down to their children ; they 
transmitted the once-kindled lamp from sire to son, never 
suffering its light to grow dim, or its heat to evaporate. 
And as a member of a lately founded sect can soon detect 
whether an interpretation of Scripture be in accordance 
with what he calls the gospel, so did a primitive Christian 
understand whether such an interpretation was or was not 
contrary to what he called the Catholic faith. 

But it is said that some of the Fathers were sometimes in 
error. Now I certainly do protest against the manner in 
which it is not unfrequently attempted by not very wise men 
to prove this, which is thus: '*Such a Father differs from 
me, a modern teacher, therefore such a Father must be in 
error:" the whole authority of which judgment depends 
upon an assumption, more bold than modest, that the modern 
teacher is infaUible : or if he defend himself by saying that 
his is the opinion of the religious world, again, I ask. Is the 
religious world itself infallible ? We know that the great 
object with the religious world is to produce not unity in the 
Church, but union among sects; — -to do this many scrip- 
tural principles must, on all sides, be conceded, and much 
regarded as non-essential, which to some persons appears to 
be essential. We cannot allow, then, a reference to the 
opinion of the religious world to be of any authority in such 
a case. But as a matter of fact, we do admit that many of 
the Fathers did err. Who ever thought them to be infalli- 
ble men ? Nay, the student of the Fathers can point out to 
you the kind of error to which any particular Father may 
have had a tendency, and he can probably shew how that 
error was detected and animadverted upon by his contempo- 
raries. But admit that they erred, — what then? Are we 
not to read them because they were liable to error? In 
many of the works published by popular Tract Societies, \ 



OR, POPERY REFUTED BY TRADITION. 



149 



could point out, not only errors, but if I were to use the lan- 
guage of those who condemn the Fathers, I should say, 
grievous heresies : yet, are w^e on that account to refuse to 
read any modern Tract ? But this is what they ought to do 
who censure us for studying the Fathers, because the Fa- 
thers, were not infallible men. What we chiefly desire in 
reading them is, to ascertain, not what the private opinions 
of individual Fathers were, but, for reasons I have before 
assigned, what was the general system of Doctrine in their 
age. 

But a popular argument against this use of the Fathers, 
and this deference to the tradition of the ancient Church, 
rather than to that of the modern religious w^orld is, that it 
is impossible for the mass of mankind to study writings so 
voluminous. But are the mass of mankind appointed to be 
teachers ? We may fairly expect those who are ordained 
to the office of teaching to attend to such things, for to 
enable them to do so is the very reason why the Church is 
endowed. But in no sense will the objection hold as appli- 
cable to members of the Church of England ; for it is assert- 
ed, and has never been contradicted, that on all essential 
points this primitive tradition is embodied in the Book of 
Common Prayer. It is this that gives to the Prayer Book 
its weight and authority as an interpreter of Scripture. As 
such, it is, of necessity, to a certain extent, employed by 
those even who endeavour to unite their duty to the Church 
with their duty to the religious world;— to the Church of 
which the object is to bind us to those very principles which 
the religious world would relax. They may have their 
reasons for this deference to an uninspired formulary, those 
who are called High Churchmen, may have theirs, which is 
the one I have assigned; — the fact, namely, of its embody- 
ing that primitive tradition, which, though not the light of 

the gospel itself, for which we look to Scripture, may be 
13* 



150 



THE NOVELTIES OF ROMANISM; 



serviceable to weaker brethren, when the blasts of strange 
doctrine are raging furiously around us, and threatening to 
bring down the very bulwarks of our Zion, to act as a lan- 
thorn for the protection of that light. And if the High 
Churchmen provide you, my Brethren, with another reason 
for loving your Prayer Book, forgive them this wrong. 

But then comes the grand charge of all — this system of 
deference to antiquit}- must lead to Popery: an assertion 
which it is the more difficult to refute since it is impossible 
in these days to ascertain what, in the sense of the religious 
world, Popery is. Some persons tell us that the surjjlice is 
a rag of Popery, because the Papists in their ministrations 
wear a surplice in common with ourselves; others speak of 
the Pro.yer Book as Popish, because almost the whole of the 
Book of Common Prayer may be found in the Koman Missal 
and Breviary. Some religionists regard infant baptism as a 
remnant of Popery, while others only think it Popish to 
suppose that infants derive any benefit from that Sacrament: 
some persons think the Catechism Popish, and others that it 
is Popish to teach children doctrines before they can under- 
stand them : a highly respectable, though, as I think, an 
awfully mistaken class of religionists, who profess to be 
guided by the Bible only, think the doctrine of the Trinity 
Popish, because the Papists, amidst all their corruptions, 
still worship the Trinity in Unity and the L'nity in Trinity. 
Now the real fact is, that you may in this way prove almost 
any scriptural truth to be Popish, because Popery consists 
in novel enlargements of old Catholic truths; in novel addi- 
tions to ancient and true doctrines. Thus the Papist holds 
with us that the twenty-two Books of the old Testament are 
canonical ; but then he adds to them other books which we 
affirm to be apocryphal : he agrees with us in believing that 
after death there is a heaven and a hell, but then he adds a 
purgatory. He agrees with us that sins are to be remitted 



OR, POPERY REFUTED BY TRADITION. 



151 



by the merits of Christ ; but he adds the merits of the saints. 
He agrees with us tliat God is to be worshipped ; but he 
adds again an inferior worship due to the saints, together 
with the Virgin and the angels. He receives Christ as a 
mediator: but again he adds the mediation of the Virgin, 
saints, and angels. He agrees with us in believing our 
Lord's real presence in the Euchaj'ist; he adds his corporeal 
presence by transubstantiation. He agrees with us in believ- 
ing the communion of saints: he adds the invocation of 
them. He agrees with us in maintaining the divine authority 
of bishops and priests ; he adds the supremacy of the pope 
over all bishops and priests. He receives with us the three 
creeds: he adds the creed of Pope Pius the IV. These ad- 
ditions have led to further corruptions ; such as the adoration 
of the consecrated bread at the Lord's Supper, the worship 
of images, and other superstitions not needful to refer to. 
You perceive, then, the veiy great absurdity of accusing 
persons of being Popish merely because it may be shewn 
that the doctrines which they happen to hold are doctrines 
held also by the Papists. Why. on this ground, all would 
be Papists who believe in the plenary inspiration of Holy 
Scripture ; since such is the doctrine of the Church of Kome. 
as strongly enforced in the Vatican as in the Meeting House. 
The real question is not whether the Papists hold such and 
such doctrines in common with us: but whether we adhere 
to their additions to the Gospel truth. To accuse those of 
an inclination so to do, who have a respect for antiquity, is 
evidently absurd ; they are the very last persons to sanction 
Popish novelties, for the moment they do so their deference 
for antiquity must, in the very nature of things, cease; that 
is, they must renounce their principle before they can coun- 
tenance Popery. 

How can those who have respect for antiquity acknow- 
ledge the Supremacy of the See of Rome, when they re- 



152 



THE NOVELTIES OF ROMANISM ; 



member how Poly crates and the Bishops of Asia opposed 
the opinion of Pope Victor and despised his excommunica- 
tions ? — how the same Victor was rebuked for his arrogance 
and indiscretion by Irenaeus ?^ how St. Cyprian saluted the 
Bishop of E.ome by no higher title than that of brother and 
colleague, and feared not to express his contempt of Pope 
Stephen's judgment and determinations when that prelate 
gave his countenance to heretics ?^ — when they remember 
how Liberius, Bishop of Rome in the 4th century, applied 
to the great St. Athanasius to sanction his confession of faith : 
*'that I may know," said that Pope of Rome to Athanasius, 

whether I am of the same judgment with you in matters of 
faith, and that I may be more certain, and readily obey your 
commands?"® When they learn from Gregory the Great, 
himself Bishop of Rome in the 6th and 7th centuries, that 
"the Fathers of the Council of Chalcedon were they who 
first offered to his predecessors the title of universal Bishop, 
which they refused to accept;"^ as well they might, since 
Gregory tells us elsewhere in this epistle, that it is " a title 
blasphemous to Christian ears?" When they remember 
that the fourth Lateran was the first of those councils which 
even Romanists call general, that recognized the authority 
of the Roman See as Supreme over the Church, — a Council 
which assembled in the year 1215? How can they ever 
recognize the Church of Rome as the mistress and mother 
of all churches," when they know that the Fathers of the 
second general Council, that of Constantinople in the year 
381, gave that very title to the Church, not of Rome but of 
Jerusalem, writing in their synodical epistle : we acknow- 
ledge the most venerable Cyril, most beloved of God, to be 
the Bishop of the Church of Jerusalem, which is the mother 
of all churches. "s 

cEuseb. Eccles. Hist. Lib. v. c. 24. '^Cyp. ad Pomp. 74. 

e Atbanas. Ep. ad Epictet. ^Greg. Epist. Lib. 7. Ep. 30. 

sConc. ii. 966. Percival's Roman Schism, p. 32. 



OR, POPERY REFUTED BY TRADITION. 



153 



No, my brethren, whatever difficulties some persons, re- 
lying only on themselves, may have in explaining that pas- 
sage in the 16th chapter of St. Matthew, Thou art Peter ^ 
and upon this Rock will I build my Church ; the Romish 
argument founded upon that text will fall harmless upon 
those who defer to the Fathers ; since we have St. Augus- 
tine,^ and St. Gregory Nazianzen,^ and St. Cyril,^ and St. 
Chrysostom,^and St. Ambrose,"^ and St. Hilary,^ expounding 
that Scripture in the protestant sense. 

Neither are they very likely to fall down and worship the 
Saints departed who know that among the Fathers one of 
the strongest arguments, as they deemed it, which could be 
brought forward in favour of our Lord's divinity was the fact 
that prayer was to be made unto Him ; — while we are com- 
manded to pray only to God. The injunction to pray to 
Him was, in their minds, an assertion of his divinity. In 
vain to them will the Romanists attempt to explain away the 
second commandment: they will not even commence an 
argument upon the subject — their answer being, we have no 
such custom, neither the Churches of God: they know that 
image worship was not sanctioned in any part of the Church, 
until what is called the deutero-nicene Council, in the year 
787. And the decree of that pseudo-council was imme- 
diately repudiated by the Emperor of the West, and all the 
great divines of the day, and among others by the clergy 
of the EngHsh Church. In vain did the Pope of Rome give 
his sanction to the idolatry; at a council assembled at Frank- 
fort, the decree was (to use the language of the council 
itself,) "rejected," " despised," and " condemned" as a wick- 
edness and a novelty.^ 

^ Augustine De Verb. Dom. Serm. 13. 

' Nazian. Test, de Vet. Testam. ^ Cyril de Trin. Lib. 4. 

^ St. Chrysost. Horn. 55. in Mat. °' Ambros. Com. in Ephes. 

" Hilar, de Trin. Lib. 2. c. 6. ^ Canon H Cone, FrankCv 



154 



THE NOVELTIES OF ROMANISiM ; 



Does the Romanist bring forth his specious arguments 
(and he can do so,) for praying in a language not understood 
by the people : our answer is obvious : we have no such cus- 
tom, neither the Churches of God; for antecedently to the 
8th century, we can discover no nation which had not the 
Liturgy and Holy Scriptures in its own language, or a lan- 
guage known to it ; Origen expressly stating that in his time 
every person prayed to God in his own tongue, the Greeks 
using the Greek, the Romans the Roman language.? 

Think you those who defer to the primitive tradition of 
the Church will join with the Papists in enforcing the prac- 
tice of auricular confession to the Priest ? No, my breth- 
ren, though the Church of England does recommend, in her 
first exhortation to the Holy Communion, that if "any one 
cannot quiet his conscience, but requireth further comfort 
and counsel, he should go to some discreet and learned 
minister of God, and open his grief, that by the ministry of 
God's Holy Word he may receive the benefit of absolution, 
together with ghostly council and advice;" though such be 
the recommendation of the Church of England,*! we know 
that auricular confession was never imposed as necessary 
until the Lateran Council in 1215. 

It is sometimes insinuated that those who have a respect for 
the practices of antiquity, must be in favour of the celibacy 
of the Clergy, and it seems in vain that such clergymen by 
their own marriage shew practically the injustice of the in- 
sinuation. But on this point we are under no concern; we 

P Orig. Cont. Cels. Lib. viii, p. 402. 

q Sudden changes without substantial necessary causes and the 
heady setting forth of extremities I did never love. Confession to the 
Minister which is able to instruct, comfort, and inform the weak and 
ignorant consciences, I have ever thought might do much good in 
Christ's congregation, and so I assure you I do at this day." — Bishop 
Ridlefs Letter, Appendix to Strype's Craiimer, ii. 965. 



OR, POPERY REFUTED BY TRADITION. 155 



still say to the Romanists, We have no such custom, neither 
the Churches of God, It is true that many of the Fathers 
felt strongly with Richard Baxter, the celebrated non-con- 
formist, that it might often be "inconvenient for ministers to 
marry who have no sort of necessity these are the words 
of that pious non-conformist, and, perhaps, he thought as 
the Fathers thought, that the same was taught by St. Paul, 
in the 7th chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians: 
they — St. Paul, the Fathers, and that pious non-conformist 
— ^ thought that men were ordained not merely to make them- 
selves comfortable, and to maintain a respectable station in 
society, — but to devote all their energies, their Body, Soul, 
and Spirit, to the service of the Saviour, who bought them 
with his blood : and they thought that in many instances 
men could do this better without the burden of a family than 
with it: many of the Fathers may have erred in this opin- 
ion ; and those who censure that opinion, may, I suppose, 
likewise err: — some of them may have carried their notions 
on this point to an extreme, and I for one, think that they 
did do so :^ but they were not the authors of that iniquitous 
and demoralizing and soul-destroying rule of the Romish 
Church, by which Priests are constrained to vow a single 
life : for this rule was first obtruded in the Western Church 
(it is not even yet the rule of the Eastern Church,) by Pope 
Hildebrand, in the year 1074: and then the innovation was 
sturdily opposed by many of our Enghsh Clergy.^ 

^ Life of Mrs. Margaret Baxter, Chap. vi. 

^ I may add that some of the opinions advanced on this subject by 
some of the learned and pious writers of the Oxford Tracts appear to 
me to be incautious. I admit that the argument in favor of the cehbacy 
of the clergy is strong, and such as to recommend itself to pure and 
holy and devoted minds. It looks well on paper. But the experiment 
has been made, and it has failed. 

*It was not till the time of WilKam of Corbeil, about 1129, that the 
marriage of Secular PriestcS was put down in England. Anselm seems 



156 



THE NOVELTIES OF ROMANISxM; 



But we will advance yet further. There is an inclination 
on the part of some Protestants to the doctrine of Purgatory ; 
for what is Hell, in the estimation of those who deny the 
eternity of future punishments, but a Purgatory? And to 
those inclined to think well of the doctrine, the Romanist 
has some apparent scriptural authority to produce. He 
refers us to the third chapter of the 1st epistle to the Corin- 
thians, where we read at the 13th verse : The fire shall try 
every mail's work of what sort it is. If ct'^y marl's work abide 
which he hath built thereon, he shall receive a reward. If G.'^y 
mart's work be burned, he shall suffer loss, yet he himself 
shall be saved yet so as by fire. By such a passage some 
persons may be staggered, but we can answer, We have no 
such custom, neither the Churches of God ; and for the truth 
of our positioft we can appeal to Bishop Fisher, a martyr to 
the Romish cause, who expressly tells us that " the doctrine 
of Purgatory was rarely, if at all, heard of among the an- 
cients; and to this very day, the Greeks believe it not;" and 
he adds, with reference to the doctrine of Indulgences, "so 
long as men were unconcerned about Purgatory, nobody 
inquired after Indulgences, for on that all their worth de- 
pends."^ Yes, and w^e can quote passages innumerable from 
the Fathers to shew that the ancient faith was, as the true 
faith is, that when our life in this world is brought to a close, 
our state of probation ceases ;^ aye, and we can shew that 
the first authoritative decree concerning Purgatory was 
made so lately as the Council of Florence, in the year 1438. 

And be not astonished, brethren, at the admission made by 
Bishop Fisher; — I could produce to you similar admissions 

to have attempted it about 1102, but Henry I. opposed him. It is plain 
that many Bishops in that reign and later were married men. See 
Collier of Geoffry Rydal, Bishop of Ely, 1174—39. Collier, i. 381. 

" Op. p. 496, Ed. 1597, Art. Cont. Lutherum. 

"•^Percival on the Roman Schism, p. 354. 



OR, POPERY REFUTED BY TRADITION. 



157 



from Romish divines on almost every point. Of all vul- 
gar errors, as you must have already perceived, none can 
be greater than that which would represent the Papists 
as appellants to antiquity. Their principle is, obedience to 
those who from time to time occupy the place of ecclesiasti- 
cal rulers. These, in their opinion, constitute that Church 
which is to be heard under penalty of being accounted a 
heathen or a publican ; consequently there is no room for an 
appeal to antiquity, and accordingly the attempt to appeal 
from the present to the ancient Church has been branded by 
them, as Bishop Jebb shews, with the odious stamp of 
heresy.^ 

But it is said, that those who defer to tradition hold the 
dogma of Transubstantiation. That the Fathers did hold 
the doctrine of our Lord's real presence in the Eucharist, 
(real though spiritual, or rather the more real because 
spiritual,) we not only do not deny, but unequivocally assert. 
That is so say, they held what the Church of England holds, 
and what our wise-hearted Reformers maintained on this 
subject: for, as Bishop Cleaver observes, 'Hhe great object 
of our Reformers was, whilst they acknowledge the doctrine 
of the real presence to refute that of Transubstantiation, as 
it was afterwards to refute the notion of Impanation or Con- 
substantiation the Fathers held with the Church of Eng- 
land that the Body and Blood of Christ are verily and indeed 
taken and received by the faithful in the Lord^s Supper: they 
were wont to exhort their hearers, as the Church of Eng- 
land exhorts us, to consider the dignity of those Jiigh and 

^ Bishop Jebb, Peculiar Character of the Church of England, p. 289. 

y Bishop Cleaver's Sermon, Nov. 25, 1737. See also Bishop Ridley's 
Treatise against the Error of Transubslantiation ; Bishop Poynet's 
Treatise of Reconcihation, or Diallacticon, and Archbishop Cranmer'i 
Defence of the Catholic doctrine. B. iii. 
14 



158 



THE NOVELTIES OF ROMANISM; 



holy mysteries of that high mystery, that heavenly feast, the 
banquet of that 7/iost heavenly food: all expressions of our 
Liturgy : they did, indeed, look upon the altar to be, as our 
xxviith Homily calls it, The King of King's Table they 
were wont to declare, as in that Homily is declared, ''Thus 
much we must be sure to hold, that in the Supper of the 
Lord there is no vain ceremony, no bare sign, no untrue 
figure of a thing absent;"' but "that the faithful receive not 
only the outward Sacrament, but the spiritual thing also : 
not the figure, but the truth: not the shadow only, but the 
Body." So says the Church of England, and so said the 
Fathers. If some persons cannot make a distinction between 
the real presence of Christ in his spirit and power, and the 
corporeal presence, which is Transubstantiation, and so 
accuse us of Popish doctrine, they must blame the Church 
of England too: and so we err in good company. To cen- 
sure the dogma of Transubstantiation too strongly is impossi- 
ble, because it has not only given occasion, as our 28th arti- 
cle mildly states it, to many superstitions ; but it has also led 
to the assertion and belief of what ro my mind is absolutely 
blasphemous, that there is in the Eucharist an expiatory 
sacrifice: that therein, I utter it with horror, our Blessed 
Lord and Saviour is each time sacrificed afresh; that there 
is each time a fresh immolation and death. But still, the 
only real question is this, Has it been revealed ? — Is it part 
of the Revelation of God to man ? The Romanist afifirms 
that it is, and he refers to our Lord's own words, — This is 
my Body — This is my Blood. He calls upon us, in humble 
faith, to receive these words in the literal sense. To this all 
Protestants deinur: the Romanist has, of course, a right to 
demand a reason ; by some persons he is told that the doc- 
trine of Transubstantiation, which he would build upon this 
passage, involves an impossibility : that it is an insult to the 
understanding, a contradiction to the senses, to call upon us 
^ Exhortation to Communion office. 



OR, POPERY REFUTED BY TRADITION. 159 



to embrace it. Are you contented with these — what shall 
I call them ? — arguments ? or dogmatisms ? It may be that 
you are ; but \yhen you try to convert the Romanist, he 
replies that he sees no more difficulty in believing the doc" 
trine of Transubstantiation than in receiving the doctrine of 
the Trinity. Upon this, perhaps, you refine and you point 
out the difference between things above reason, and things 
contrary to reason, which is doubtless perfectly correct, but 
it is a refinement as difficult to unlearned minds as any thing 
to be found in the writings of the Fathers. And in spite of 
it, when you are engaged in controversy with the Socinian, 
you may perhaps find some of these hard words retorted 
upon yourself. The Socinian will speak of impossibilities, 
insults to the understanding, contradiction to the senses, and 
so forth. But we will not quarrel with those who thus 
attempt to refute the dogma of Transubstantiation. All that 
we say is, that we do not like to elevate ourselves and to 
judge of what the Almighty can do or cannot do. And cer- 
tainly our mode of proceeding is far easier and more intelli- 
gible to the brethren at large. We tell the Romanist that 
we understand the passage referred to with the English 
Church, in a sublime and mysterious, but not in a literal 
sense. For as the Catholic creeds and holy Scripture teach, 
we believe our holy Redeemer's body is in heaven, and will 
there remain, till he shall come, in like manner as he ascend- 
ed, at the end of the world, to judge the quick and the dead. 
And as to the dogma of Transubstantiation, we have no such 
custom^ neither the Churches of God. If that passage implies 
the doctrine of Transubstantiation, we ask how it came to 
pass that this doctrine was unknown to the Catholic Church 
for seven hundred years ? We know it as an indisputable 
fact, that this error was first started in the eighth century: 
that it found its most able advocate in Paschasius Radbert, in 
the ninth century ; and that when this error was first intro- 
duced, it was spoken of by Raban Maurus, the pupil of our 



160 



THE NOVELTIES OF ROMANISM; 



countryman, Alcuin, Archbishop of Mentz, as an error 
broached by some individuals "unsoundly thinking or late," 
and by the contemporary Divines of the Churches of Eng- 
land and Ireland it was strongly opposed.^ We know, 
moreover, that it was not authoritatively received even by 
the Roman Church till the Fourth Lateran Council, in the 
year 1215. So then, brethren, those who defer to Primitive 
Tradition, and study the writings of the Ancients, may be 
thought by some persons to be the most judicious opponents 
of Romanism,^ — but certain it is, that they cannot receive 
the Romish doctrine of Transubstantiation until they have 
renounced these principles. No, nor with reference to 
the Eucharist will they ever consent to withhold the cup 

a See Percival's.Roman Schism, 40, 56, 132, 346, 225, 372, 429. 

^ The question as to the proper manner of opposing Romanism is one 
of great importance. I can state it on high authority, that the Papists 
always calculate on twenty or thirty converts to their system, after a 
meeting in any place of the so-called Reformation Society. The decla- 
matory violence at these meetings disgusts some persons, in others 
doubts are suggested, while weak arguments are used to answer them, 
and recourse is eventually had, under the idea of hearing both sides, to 
the Romish Priest for their sohition. To support a good cause with bad 
arguments is the best aid that can be given to those whose cause is bad. 
There are many anti-popery sermons and speeches reported in the news- 
papers, which suggest a doubt to the mind whether those who delivered 
them were the more ignorant of the doctrines of the Church of Rome, 
or of the doctrines of the Church of England. And it is no new art of 
the Romanists to attack the Church in this way by their own emissaries 
in disguise. "In the 16th century, one Cummin, a friar, contrived to 
be taken into the Puritans' pulpits, where, as he stated in the Councils, 
^ I preached against set forms of prayer, and I called English prayers, 
English mass, and have persuaded several to pray spiritually and 
extempore : and this hath so taken with the people, that the Church of 
England is become as odious to that sort of people whom I instructed, 
as the mass is to the Church of England, and this will be a stumbling 
block to that Church so long as it is a Church,' For this the Pope com- 



OR, POPERY REFUTED BY TRADITION. 161 

from the Jaity, an injustice, robbery, and wrong, not sanc- 
tioned even by the Romish Church till the Council of Con- 
stance, in 1414. 

I will refer to one other topic and then conclude. That 
which, in my humble opinion, makes the Church of Rome, 
and all Churches connected with her, by receiving the 
decrees of the Council of Trent, to be absolutely heretical, — 
that which has separated them from the Catholic Church 
itself, that which renders all union with them utterly im- 
possible, is this: — that to the Scriptures of God and the 
Creeds of the Church they have made additions. To the 
three Creeds which we possess in common with the whole 
Church, they have added the Creed of Pope Pius the IVth ; 
and they receive the Books of the Apocrypha as equally 
sacred and canonical with the Books of Holy Scripture. 
Now I ask, how are we to prove that in so doing the Romish 

mended him, and gave him a reward of 2,000 ducats for his good ser- 
vice. Are there not many at the present day, of whom, if they were to 
apply to the Pope for a reward on the same score, all the world could 
witness that they have well deserved it at his hands ? Surely our oppo- 
nents have some reason to feel misgivings when they find themselves 
treading in the footsteps of the Heathen revilers of Christianity, and of 
the Popish hireling underminers of the bulwark of Protestantism. — Perci' 
val on Apostolical Succession, pp. 64, 65." I may here remark on the 
craft of the Romanists of the present day. In order to causedivision among 
Protestants, in some of their publications they are said to have spoken of 
the writers of the Oxford Tracts as allies. In the report, however, o( 
one of Dr. Wiseman's Lectures to Romanists at Manchester, it appears 
that " he broke out into a strain of passionate invective against the 
writers of the Tracts for the times, denouncing them, and complaining 
that they had started a line of argument against their Popish opponents 
that had been left undisturbed for a century." — Manchester Courier, 
Oct. 26, 1839. To the falsehoods of Popish Priests I have traced many 
of the absurd stories propagated by Dissenters against consistent Church-* 
men. 

14* * ■ 



16-2 



THE NOVELTIES OF ROMANISM ; 



Church is in error 1 How but by consulting those Tery 
Fathers, for having a regard for whom we are too often mis- 
represented ? How but by referring to Origen, and Euse- 
bius, and St. Athanasius. and St. Hilary, and Epiphanius. 
and St. Gregory Xaziauzen, and St. Jerome:^ the latter of 
whom, after enumerating the Canonical Books of Scripture, 
expressly declares that whatever is besides these is to be 
reckoned among the Apociypha?" How but by reference 
to the Councils of Chalcedon, and Laodicea, and Nice, and 
to the Apostolical canons ? Perhaps those who disapprove 
of this, are contented with the authority of some modern 
writer, who asserts that he has examined the subject. Be 
it so: and the Komanist may be perplexed to understrnd why 
he is to be blamed for placing the same confidence m his 
wi'iters who make an assertion contrary to that on which the 
Protestant relies. But. at all events, it cannot be sinful in 
us to examine the Fathers and Councils themselves, to be 
certain that the modern writer is correct. And so you see 
that the Fathers are not utterly to be despised: but some 
regard to antiquity may be of service to our learned men. 
And he who shall tell us. as we have been virtually told of 
late, ''if these books contain the same doctrine with the 
Bible they can be of no use since the Bible contains all neces- 
sary truth, but if they contain any thing contrary to the 
Bible they ought not to be suffered, let them, therefore, be 
destroyed," wiU reason more like the Moslem fanatic than 
an enlightened Christian. 

In what has now been said, it has not been my wish to 
give unnecessary offence. 3Iy chief object has been to 
shew that into whatever errors our respect for antiquity may 
lead us^ — and, since all things connected with man are liable 
to abuse. I am ready to admit that there may be some errors, 
— it is not to Popery that it tends : nay, that armed as others 

<^PrEef. in Librum Ptegum. See the quotations at length in Percival, 
420; and the Councils, pp. 41, 56, 159, 362. 



OR, POPERY REFUTED BY TRADITION. 163 



may think themselves by arguments, we are doubly armed: 
we have their arguments, for as much as they are worth, 
and we have, moreover, the testimony of the primitive 
Church. As a very learned man of this town profoundly 
remarks, " Tradition itself is the very evidence on which we 
convict w^hat are called Traditions, (by the Papists.) of de- 
fective authority.'"*^ If the charge of our being popishly 
affected be brought against us, because even to Romanists we 
would extend our charity, and instead of returning railing 
for their railing would convince tliem by argument, while 
we treat them with that courtesy which Christianity does 
not absolutely forbid; and, admit, what m c?A\d.Q\xY must be 
admitted, that they have much in their system that is true, 
for they have much in common, not only with the Church 
of England, but with all Protestants except the "Unita- 
rians:" if on this account the charge be brought against us, 
to it we must plead guilty. By some persons it is not con- 
sidered a breach of Christian charity to adopt towards the 
Romish Dissenters every species of vituperation which the 
arts of rhetoric and a skilful periphrasis may render not 
vulgar: it is not considered a breach of Christian charity to 
excite against them the wildest passions of the fanatic, and 
to exhibit, instead of the gentle persuasions of the Christian 
preacher, a close imitation of the vehement declamations of 
the heathen orator ; but against Protestant Dissenters, whom 
the rehgious world, (not infallible, but acting as if it were 
so) pronounces to be orthodox, to insinuate that they may 
err on any essential point, is a breach of charity which is, in 
the eyes of the religious world, unpardonable. Xow, my 
brethren, the true Churchman stands fairly and boldly in the 
middle way: he considers both, the Protestant and the 
Romish Dissenter, to be in errar, — the latter by adding to, 
the former by detracting from, the doctrine and disciphne of 
the Catholic Church. He conceives it to be the part both 

'^Parkinson's Hulsean Lectures, 1338, p. 84. 



164 THE XOVELTIES OF ROMANISM. Sec. 



of duty and of charity to maintain that middle position in 
which God has placed him. and, as occasion offers, to warn 
either side of the en'ors committed on that side, and of the 
danger, ^vhen warned, of adhering to them. But here he 
remains : be advpjices no further: he assumes not to himself 
the character of judge, when our Lord commands us Judge 
not. What amount of tiTith it may be necessaiy for each 
individual, for his salyation to possess, he knows not. He 
only knows that each man will be judged Iv that he hath, not 
hy that he hoik not: and that our duty it is. without respect 
of persons, without caring for whom it may seem to con- 
demn, to declare al.l the counsel of God. We treat no error 
with toleration: we treat no person with unkindness or dis- 
respect. If we see the Protestant Dissenter or the Romish 
Dissenter surpassing us in holiness, we do not pronounce 
them to be free from error, nor do we represent their errors 
as trivial, or conceal from them our opinion, that if the 
means of avoiding those errors have been within their reach 
they will be accountable to God for not having recourse to 
them : but we do say in great humihty, li hat a man would 
this have been had he been blessed with my superior advan- 
tages! And what a sinner am I, that with all my superior ad- 
vantages I am in my conduct his inferior ! and this sends us to 
our knees and our self-denials, that we may obtain pardon for 
the past through the merits and intercession of an Almighty 
Saviour: and grace for the futui'e. to form habits of stricter 
piety. 

In short, vre learn from Scripture, as well as from anti- 
quity, that a nrm uncompromising adherence to our princi- 
ples, a calm, steady, zealous promulgation of the truth, and 
a fearless rebuke of error, are all parts of Christian charity : 
but when either Romanist or Protestant has recourse to 
persecution, whether physical or moral, to the hon'ors of 
the inquisition or to railing accusations, we reply. JVe hare 
7(0 such custom. 7ieither the Giurches of God. 



SERMON VII. 

THE BASIS OF EDUCATION. 



And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel 
to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved. 
— Mark xvi. 15, 16. 

In the command here given by our blessed Lord to His 
Apostles and their successors, we clearly perceive the great 
object we ought to have in view in all the instructions we 
give either directly, as clergy, from our pulpits, or indirect- 
ly, clergy and laity united, in our schools, — namely, the 
propagation of the Gospel, the propagation of those truths 
of revelation which shall lead men to Christ. In justice to 
those persons who, with feelings the most conscientious, 
are, from circumstances, induced to take of the great subject 
of national education, a view rather political than religious, 
and yet would defer to the sentiments of others whose au- 
thority in matters purely religious they respect, this fact 
ought to be fully, frankly, and unequivocally stated, — the 
fact that when we speak of an education based on religion, 
we mean, by religion, the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, 
and nothing else, — the fact thatw^e desire in our schools not 
merely that the Bible may be read, but that the Gospel may I 
be taught. 

And why has there been hitherto any hesitation in asserting 
this? Why has the real state of the question been kept in 
the back-ground? It is because our friends are well aware 
that the assertion of this principle must at once lead to the 



166 THE GOSPEL, AND THE GOSPEL ONLY, 



question, What is the Gospel ? Let the question be asked, 
and each sect is heard to give a different answer: Arminian 
sects saying one thing; Cakinistic sects anathematizing the 
Arminians, and saying the reverse; Socinian sects con- 
demning both. Stunned by this Babel of discordant sounds, 
the practical politician is led to the conclusion, that, amid 
these various contradictions, no answer can be found. And 
our opponents, in all the triumph of a bitter sarcasm, ex- 
claim, in their public discussions, The Gospel ! aye, but what 
is the Gospel ? what is Christianity 1^ what is the the truth ? 

Yes, it comes at last to this, — to the insinuation that 
divine truth is nowhere to be found. Contemplating the 
differences which exist among those who profess and call 
themselves Christians, practical men who have not given to 
the subject that attention which its importance demands, 
insinuate that to ascertain divine truth is impossible ; that for 
one man to assert that he possesses the truth, thereby im- 
plying that his opponent has it not, is uncharitable and 
popish.^ Alas ! even pious persons, until what they think a 
fundamental doctrine is attacked, are too much inclined to 
countenance this delusion. Looking to truth rather in its 
application than in its reality, they lead to the conclusion 
that divine truth is not objective, but merel}^ subjective. 
But, however the error may arise, let us not shut our eyes 
to the actual state of the case. If, as it is insinuated, there 
is no such thing to be ascertained as divine truth, then, 
of course, one of two things must follow : either, God has not 

^ What is Christianity ? was the question asked by Lord Brougham 
of the assembled sectarians, when it was discussed whether instruction 
in the principles of Christianity should be given in the University of 
London. His acute mind at once perceived the difficulty. 

^ This was repeatedly said in the late debates, in the House of Com- 
mons on the education question, and said too, rather inconsistently by 
the very advocates of Popery, 



THE BASIS OF EDUCATION. 



167 



revealed His will to man : or, He has so revealed it as to 
make it worse than no revelation, since it is impossible for 
man to know what the revelation really is. If there be a 
revelation, and that revelation be intelligible, then, of com'se, 
divine truth is discoverable ; and it is a question, not of 
charity, but of fact, whether we know what the truth reveal- 
ed is. If we have the truth, and, others are opposed to it 
when we assert it, it is a mere matter of fact, having nothing 
to do with charity one way or the other, that we are not, 
and that they are, in error. The want of charity would 
be, indeed, in our not endeavouring to propagate it. We 
may be called presumptuous, but a little charitable presump- 
tion is sometimes necessary. The philosopher presumes, 
when he acts as if he knew more than an idiot ; but when 
we see him employing his superior wisdom to save that 
idiot from impending but unperceived destruction, we par- 
don his presumption in admiration of his charity. And 
many a wise man after the flesh is in spiritual things little 
better than an idiot, simply because to those things he has 
not sought grace to direct his mind, while he ventures, cer- 
tainly not in humility, to dogmatize on a subject on which 
he is notoriously ignorant. 

To sum up the whole matter : Is there a revelation ? If 
there be, then the truth is discoverable. Is the truth not 
ascertainable? If it be not, then there is no revelation; or 
if there be, that revelation is a mockery. Either, then, 
cease to profess yourself to be a Christian, or if you do pro- 
fess to be a Christian, while you earnestly implore the aid of 
God the Holy Ghost, labour vdth all the powers of your 
mind to discover that truth as it is in Jesus, compared with 
which we may well count all other knowledge as dung. 

Now this is precisely what is meant by the Gospel, — tht 
truth as it is in Jesus. The question is, how are we to ascer- 
tain what this is; and in answering this question we are 



163 



THE GOSPEL, AXD THE GOSPEL ONLY, 



brought immediately into controversy with the Eomanist; 
for the Romanist adduces as part of the counsel of God, as 
a portion of the truth as it is in Jesus, doctrines not con- 
tained in Holy Scripture. And the point tx) be debated with 
the E-omanist is. nor whether it is possible that a doctrine 
may have been revealed which is not contained in Scripture, 
for this unquestionably is possible, but the simple fact, how 
can you prove that any doctrine which is not contained in 
Scripture has come by inspiration from God. Where is the 
proof? "We refase to receive any such doctrine as an article 
of faith because your proof of its being a part of God's revela- 
tion to man is defective. For what mean we by the Scrip- 
tures ? By the Scriptures we mean the volume which con- 
taius aU of those sacred : : ^^'h" :!: the plenary inspi- 

ration can be' proved, r inspiration of any 

book whatever, and we at ODce admit that it ought to form a 
part of Holy Scripture : but, relying as we do on the testimony, 
not of the Church of Kome, not of the Church of England, 
but of the Church L'liiversal. we assert, on the authority of 
the L'niversal Church, that such proof of plenary inspiration 
can be brought in favour of no other books except those 
which we receive as cononical. 

But if "Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to 
salvation:" the conclusion of course is, that whatsoever is 
not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be 
required of any man that it should be believed as an article 
of faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation.'*^ 

Here, then, is a principle, which unprejudiced common 
sense must at once admit: defeniog as we do, and as the 
Romanist does /lot, to the testimony of the universal Church, 
we receive the Bible, and the Bible only, not indeed as our 
rehgion, but as our Rule of Faith. " To the law and to t)ie tesii- 
rrwny : iftJiey speak not according to this word^^^ we say of every 

<= See Article TL 



THE BASIS OF EDUCATION. 



169 



preacher, — of every framer of a theological system, ''it is he- 
cause there is no light in them:' Every preacher or teacher is 
bound to prove that any doctrine he propounds is scriptural. 

But our opponent asserts that, admitting this, we have 
advanced no way in solving the difficulty, since the doctrines 
which protestant sects and parties elicit from Scripture are 
different, and very often contradictory. The objection, you 
observe, is this — that Scripture gives an uncertain sound; 
that it has no definite meaning, which is. of course, tanta- 
mount to saying that it has no meaning at all ; for that which 
may mean any thing can mean nothing certain. But this is 
absurd : it is manifestly absurd to say of any book that it was 
written without any definite meaning ; that the writer intend- 
ed it to be understood in any sense that the reader might be 
pleased to put upon it. Therefore, besides the Bible, it is 
absolutely necessary that we should have some plain rule 
laid down to guide us in the interpretation of the Bible, to 
lead us to the right sense of the Bible, to enable us to know, 
not what the Bible can by ingenious men be made to say, 
but what the Lord our God has revealed. 

Now this has for some time past, not only been overlook- 
ed, but absolutely denied by many well-meaning Christians. 
But circumstances have now occurred, sufficient, we may 
hope, to convince them of their error. Making the Bible a 
kind of idol, they have emulated the idol-makers at Ephesus, 
and have been calling out, the Bible, and the Bible only, — 
the Bible, and the Bible only, is the religion of Protestants."^ 
And now the ministers of the crown have taken them at 
their word. They have heard men talk of an education to 

There are, I fear, Bible-worshippers, men who think that if you 
believe in the Bible, you believe all that is needful. But what we are 
required to believe is, what God has revealed; and if we so read the 
Bible, as not to understand from it what God's revelation really is, we 
read the Bible, of course, in vain. 
15 



170 THE GOSPEL, AND THE GOSPEL ONLY, 



be based on religion, and they have said, the education we 
propose shall be based on religion ; they have heard men de- 
clare that the Bible, and the Bible only, is their religion, and 
they have answered, the Bible shall be introduced into our 
schools, and the Bible shall be the only religious book so in- 
troduced ; they have heard men declaiming on the right of 
private judgment, and they have offered to grant that right 
to the parent of every child in these schools. However mis- 
taken they may have been, their intentions were, doubtless, 
honest ; and they had a fair right to expect that their measure 
would be received with enthusiasm by all,' except a few 
bigotted unenlightened high-churchmen, who, for refusing to 
assent to these propositions, had been assailed in a manner 
rather hard to be reconciled to the common notions enter- 
tained of Christian charity. But the practical evil likely to 
result from the adoption by government of the principle long 
and vehemently advocated in ultra-protestant publications, 
was immediately apparent. For no sect, no party, act more 
consistently on the principle, that the Bible, and the Bible 
only, as interpreted by each man's private judgment, is the 
Christian religion, than those who assume to themselves the 
denomination of "Unitarians." But by us churchmen, by 
the universal Church, theirs is regarded as a God-denying 
heresy, and they are ranked among the most insidious ene- 
mies of the Gospel. And in this view of the subject, we are 
joined by the more respectable sects of Dissenters. The 
danger then of allowing national schools to be so arranged, 
as to authorise "Unitarian teachers to draw from Scripture 
inferences subversive of all Gospel truth, was recognised; 
and with an inconsistency at which I rejoice, those very 
Churchmen, who had been most loud in their cry of, the 
Bible, and the Bible only, in their loyalty to Christian truth, 
have united with the more consistent brethren, of what is 
jaick-named the high-church party; and, by opposing the 



THE BASIS OF EDUCATION. 



171 



Government scheme, have virtually declared, that, if we 
wish to ascertain what our God has revealed, something 
more than the Bible is necessary; namely, some clearly 
defined system for the interpretation of the Bible. 

Of the necessity of this, the Reformers, foreign as well as 
domestic, had a clear perception, as every one else must have, 
who will impartially consider the subject. As in a great 
sphere, it is impossible for the limited vision of man to take 
in all at once, but now this side, now that, must be exhibited 
to him: so is it with respect to Scripture, wherein first one 
truth, then another is gradually, and often incidentally brought 
to light, while their connexion and their bearing upon the 
whole of Revelation cannot always be clearly seen. There 
is danger, that, when insisting on one doctrine, we shall so 
exaggerate its importance, as to make it contradict another 
doctrine by which it ought to be qualified ; that when our 
attention is, by the circumstances under which we are placed, 
directed to one class of duties, we shall overlook another 
class of duties ; that we shall not perceive the proportiou 
which the parts have to the whole. Hence, to arrive at the 
truth, we must, besides having recourse to humble prayer, 
compare spiritual things with spiritual, we must compare 
one Scripture with another, and with respect to each sepa- 
rate text, we must interpret it according to the analogy of 
faith. And to supply us with this analogy of faith, to assist 
us in arriving at the truth, by enabling us to overcome these 
difficulties, the Church provides us with her creeds and con- 
fessions of faith, her articles and formularies. Nothing can 
be more absurd than the conduct of modern ultra-Protestants, 
who, while pretending to be the only real defenders of the 
Reformation, unite with the Papists in denouncing, as con- 
trary to Protestantism, the use of creeds, confessions, arti- 
cles, and formularies, as if they were additions to Scripture. 
To add to Scripture, were indeed to bring down God's curse 



172 THE GOSPEL. AND THE GOSPEL ONLY. 



upon us; and it is because of her additions to Scripture, no 
doubt, that the curse of God hangs over the Church of 
Rome, a cloud blackening her horizon, and prepared to burst 

in thunder upon her (unless she reform,) in that stonn of 
destruction in which, when anti- Christ shall come, all will 
be involved, who have in any measure been his type, as 
Popery undoubtedly is. But by our creeds, and articles, and 
formularies, aud confessions we do not seek to make any 
additions to God's word, any more than by making a map of 
our countiy or by supplying a timeUer with a guide-book, 
we should be seeking to add to our territories. Creeds, con- 
fessions, and articles, are intended only to supply us with a 
general outline of revealed doctrine, by adhering to which 
you will be able tb put the right construction on what is 
wi'itten in Scripture. This was the object of Luther and 
Melancthon, when :': - :rew up their confessions of faith; 
this is the object "vj^ich Zuinglius and Calvin wrote, 
when they discovered the system of Luther to be defective; 
t; c iirctthe errors of Calvin's system was the design of 
Ai_„..,:. s and Episcopius; — and to improve or to correct 
some one or all of these older systems of theology, is the 
cause why sects innumerable are continually starting into 
existence. I am not vindicating the particular system of any 
one of these illustrious theologians ; I only allude to these 
facts to show that they recognised the principle, that to 
guide men to the truth of Reveiation, something besides 
Scripture is necessary ; and that they did not consider the 
use of a theological system to imply, of necessity, an addi- 
tion to Scripture. Whether the systems propounded by them 
diid^ per adventure^ add to Scripture, is quite another question, 
to which allasion will be hereafter made. It is, indeed, a 
ridiculous self-deception for any parties to deny that they 
are influenced in the interpretation of Scripture by some 
system extrinsical of Scripture, merely because they do not 



THE BASIS OF EDUCATION. 



173 



formally subscribe to some confession of faith. For if they 
do not formally swear to the words of Luther or of Calvin, 
or of Arminius, or of Socinus, they receive the system of 
of some one or other of these theologians as a tradition : else 
what is meant by the denomination they assume ? What is 
meant, when a man calls himself a Calvinist, but that he ad- 
heres to Calvin's system, if not as read in his writings, yet 
certainly as received as a tradition in his sect or party? 
What is meant by an Arminian, a W^esleyan, an Irvingite, 
but one who adheres to the system of interpreting and har- 
monizing Scripture — to the general scheme of doctrine in- 
vented by one or other of these eminent men? Thus it is 
that all parties tacitly admit, if they do not, as we do, openly 
avow, that in order to ascertain what the Gospel really is, 
what the truths are which Scripture actually propounds, 
what it is that God in very truth reveals, the interpreters of 
Scripture require some system for their guidance, either 
written or traditional, i^nd the real question is, not whether 
some system is needed, but what is the right system. 

But our opponent still objects, that, even admitting this, 
the difficulty is not solved, for how are we to decide what the 
right system is? And I answer, Let prejudice be set aside, 
and common sense will suffice to direct us in our decision. 

It will be plausibly said by some person, that we must 
test any system proposed for our adoption by Scripture, and 
then abide by that which is scriptural. But what is one of 
the chief objects for which a system is required ? is it not to 
guide the inquirer to the true sense of Scripture ? To refer, 
then, to Scripture to prove that any particular system is the 
correct one, is merely to argue in a circle. You may be 
able to ascertain that it does contradict the clear and 
undisputed statements of Scripture; and if it do this, of 
course, you will at once reject it. But there are very few 
doctrines which are not disputed ; and when you come to 
15.* . . 



174 



THE GOSPEL, AND THE GOSPEL ONLY, 



these, you must remember that each system that is presented 
to us by protestants professes to be scripturaL When you 
pronounce, then on any one system, that it is exclusively 
scriptural, what is it that you do but beg the whole question, 
and assume, without proof, the very point which it is your 
business to prove ? The very thing that the Arminian says 
of the Calvinist, on the points wherein they differ, is that the 
Calvinistic system is unscriptural ; and this is the very thing 
that the Calvinist predicates of the Arminian. Who is to de- 
cide ? Will you take the decision upon yourself? But why 
should you be more infallible than he is, upon whom you 
presume to sit in judgment? Are you more learned, more 
wise, than Arminius, or than Calvin, both among the most 
learned men of their respective ages ? Will you say that you 
have prayed, and that therefore you feel sure that you are 
guided by the Holy Spirit unto the truth ? But what is this 
but an uncharitable insinuation that he who takes a different 
view of Scripture truth from yourself has not prayed ? And 
what right have you, with an uncharitable judgment to assume 
this? We know it, as an historical fact, that most of the 
founders of sects and systems have declared that their prayer 
to be guided into truth has been earnest and frequent. 
What right have you, in any case, to assume that in saying 
so, one man was, and the other man was not, a hypocrite ? 
It is on the moral nature, not on the intellectual, except so 
far as the intellectual is influenced by the moral, that the 
Holy Spirit operates when he prepares our minds, not so 
much to discover what the truth is, as to receive it with 
humility when discovered. 

In order, then, to decide what system we ought to adopt, 
we must inquire into the general principle on which that 
system professes to be based — the principle by which those 
were influenced who drew up the system. 



THE BASIS OF EDUCATION- 



175 



Now let us ask the Arrainian on what ground he recom- 
mends his system: his answer is, that his system i& the 
Scripture system, having been deduced from Scripture by 
Arminius, a great, a good, a learned, and a pious man ; he 
prayerfully studied the Bible, and in that harmony of Scrip- 
ture doctrine drawn up by him you may confide : true, is 
the reply; but Arminius was not infallible, and for embracing 
his system the Calvinist consigns me to perdition. But then 
what is the authority on which the Calvinistic system rests ? 
The same answer is to be gi^en, that Calvin was a great, a 
good, a learned, and a pious man ; he prayerfully consulted 
the Scriptures, and his is the scriptural system: true, is the 
reply; but Calvin, after all, was but a fallible man; why 
should he be more right than Servetus, whom he condemn- 
ed to death? We can only adopt one or other of these 
systems, either as a tradition, — a tradition of no value, since 
it originates merely in the dicta of uninspired man, — or as a 
system originating in one whom w^e are willing, from cer- 
tain circumstances, though directly in opposition to the 
plain injunctions of Scripture, to call our master; or as h 
system which we take it upon ourselves to pronounce to be 
scriptural, which, as I have shown, is a mere jyetitio prin- 
cipii. I do not think, then, unprejudiced common sense would 
lead us to rely on these. With respect to the modern Uni- 
tarian, there is some difference, though it is more apparent 
than real. He says^ I take the Bible, and the Bible only, 
without reference or deference to any system ; but in fact 
he defers to his own particular reason. Out of his own 
opinions he forms a system for himself, and thus makes his 
own opinions to be of equal authority with Scripture ; and 
then, when he finds that the Bible and his own opinions do 
not accord, he has recourse to his Lexicons, and all the 
apparatus of verbal criticism, to see if he cannot force upon 
Scripture a different meaning from that which it ordinarily 



176 



THE GOSPEL, AND THE GOSPEL ONLY, 



bears.® The E^omanist is as bad, if not worse ; for he inter- 
prets Scripture according to the sense which his own par- 
ticular Church has arbitrarily put upon it, either at or since 
the Council of Trent. 

But now let us see whether there is not some system not 
liable to these objections, according to which we may obtain 
a certain sound, — a definite sense, from the Bible. Suppose 
w^e were desirous of ascertaining the meaning of some book, 
referring to usages and doctrines formerly existing. There 
would, of course, as there is in the Bible, be many things so 
plain that there could not be tvv^o opinions with respect to 
them on the part of those capable of understanding the lan- 
guage in which it was written. But on those many points 
of importance on which there might be a division of opinion, 
what would be the course which common sense would 
suggest for our adoption ? Should we not think that the 
sense in which the book had been understood by all who had 
conversed with the writer, (if there had been several writers, 
the case would be the stronger) most probably the correct 
sense? Should we not feel this the more powerfully, if the 
writers, before composing the book, had been accustomed to 
converse on its subject-matter ^ — if they had desired the per- 
sons with whom they conversed to treasure up their doc- 
trines, to keep them as a sacred deposit, and to hand them 
on to their posterity; and if these persons had been their 
devoted disciples ? And if we find that in providing for us a 
system for the better understanding of Scripture, those who 
drew up that system had an especial regard to this principle, 
should we not conclude that this is the system most worthy 

^ By contending with Unitarians" on their own system, instead of 
attacking the system itself, those who defend the cause of orthodoxy, 
but not on Church principles, are, in their pubhc discussions with " Uni- 
tarians," sometimes apt to injure the cause to the defence of which they 
have rashly come. 



THE BASIS OF EDUCATION. 



177 



of adoption ? should we not say these persons went the right 
way to work? And so did the English reformers frame 
their system on Scripture, and on Scripture only ; but 
wherever Scripture has been doubtful or ambiguous, instead 
of deferring to the conjectures of an individual critic, they 
have understood it in the sense in which it was understood 
by those early Christians who had been conversant with the 
Apostles, and who treasured up their teaching as the apple 
of their eye. To ascertain this sense, on all important 
points, — on all those doctrines on which, and on which only 
man has a right to dogmatize, was comparatively easy, be- 
cause the same system for the interpretation of Scripture 
had been universally adopted in the primitive Church. 
Whenever a doubt was raised as to the sense in which 
Scripture was to be understood, the inquiry among orthodox 
Christians was not,— what can such or such a learned man 
make Scripture say, (for that was the course adopted by 
heretics,) but, what did our predecessors in the faith receive 
from their fathers, — their fathers, who received their doc- 
trine from the Apostles themselves. If a difficulty occurred, 
inquiry was made as to the fact of what had been taught 
from the beginning, not in one Church only, but in all the 
Churches throughout the world, either corresponding by 
letter or meeting in council. It was soon noised abroad if 
a preacher deviated from this received system : as we can 
ourselves easily understand, for if a person brought up in 
obedience to Calvinistic tradition, if a person always accus- 
tomed to hear the Bible interpreted in the Calvinistic sense, 
enters a sanctuary where the Bible is interpreted according 
to the tradition of the Church, he immediately, almost as it 
were by intuition, detects that the Scriptures are expounded 
in a sense different from that to which he has been accus- 
tomed : and with the intolerant presumption of his party he 
denounces the preacher as one who does not preach the 



178 



THE GOSPEL, AND THE GOSPEL ONLY, 



Gospel, — the Gospel and Calvinistic tradition being identified 
in his mind. This shows how easily the primitive Christians 
could detect any deviation from the system of interpreting 
Scripture which they had received, and any such deviation 
led to the inquiry, first, as to the plain meaning of Scripture, 
and then, if the plain meaning was disputed, as to the sense 
in which it had been understood from the beginning. If, 
then, this was the principle on which the English reformers 
invariably acted, and none but a man blind by prejudice be- 
yond all conviction can deny that they did so act ; if their 
system tell us not what is taught by the Bible and Luther, 
not what is taught by the Bible and Calvin, not what is 
taught by the Bible and any uninspired individual, but what 
the Bible, as understood by the primitive Christians, reveals; 
does not comi*non sense, I ask again, suggest that this must 
be the right system ?^ And this is the system provided for 
us by our wise-hearted Reformers in the Book of Common 
Prayer. All the offices of the Prayer Book are ancient 
offices : for we are not to suppose that the Liturgy was the 
invention of a few reformers three centuries ago. You may 
still find in the breviary and missal of the Roman Church the 
prayers and devotions which we of the Church of England 
still use : our reformers were maligned as papists for retain- 
ing them ; all that they did was to reform the old Liturgies 
used in the Church of England from those additions and 
abuses which had crept into them during the middle ages, 
through an endeavour, in each age, to adapt the ritual to the 

^It is very true, that to understand the Old Testament thoroughly, we 
rnust be acquainted with the language, antiquities, customs, and modes 
of thinking prevalent among the Jews : at the same time, we may ob- 
serve, that since the New Testament is a commentary on the Old, it 
is not very likely, when we have ascertained the doctrines of the New 
Testament, that we shall fall into dangerous error when studying the 
Old. 



THE BASIS OF EDUCATION. 



179 



spirit of that age. The sin of the Eoman Church is, that it 
has retained these novelties, in doctrine and practice, which, 
because they were novelties, were abscinded by our reform- 
ers, who retained in the liturgy all that was ancient and 
catholic, rejecting all that was new and peculiar. In doing 
this, our reformers, intent not only on pleasing the people, 
not on gaining popularity, not on consulting the spirit of the 
age, but on establishing and maintaining the truth as it is in 
Jesus, compared the ancient liturgies of the Church of Eng- 
land, in the first instance, with Scripture, discarding at once 
what was plainly and palpably contrary thereto ; such cus- 
toms, for example, as praying in an unknown tongue, and 
seeking the intercession of dead saints : they then compared 
them with the ancient rituals, renouncing all usages not 
clearly primitive ; and studying deeply the writings of the 
Fathers, they embodied the doctrines which had been uni- 
versally received in the primitive Church in that which is 
the result and glory of their labours, the Book of Common 
Prayer. s And this it is which supplies us with an answer 

s Here is a point on which I venture to differ from the great and good, 
and pious writers of the Oxford Tracts. We are all agreed, as the Eng- 
lish Reformers were, in our deference to primitive tradition But there 
appears to be a difference of opinion between some of the tract writers, 
following herein the non-jurors, and the Reformers, as to the value of 
certain usages, wliich, according to the learned writers of the Tracts, 
ought to have been retained at the Reformation. Now no one can doubt 
of the patristical learning of Ridley, and Parker, and even of Cranmer. 
The question then for plain persons to decide is this, Shall we on certain 
points give credit to the Reformers who thought such usages not to be 
primitive and essential, or shall we give credit to the Oxford Tracts 
which assert that these are primitive and essential ? I confess that in 
all such points I should recommend people to defer to the Reformers, 
since their authority is more estabhshed than that of our contemporaries. 
I am aware that the answer is, that the judgment of the Reformers may 
have been warped on certain questions by a strong pressure from with- 



180 THE GOSPEL, AND THE GOSPEL ONLY, 



to those who, when we speak of primitive tradition, observe 
that this is all very well for the learned, but what are the 
unlearned to do? We point to the Prayer Book in reply, 
and say, in taking the Prayer-Book for your guide to the 
right understanding of Scripture, the whole Prayer-Book, 
catechism, articles, baptismal office, office for the Eucharist, 
office for the ordaining of bishops, priests, and deacons, you 
take for your guide the consistent voice of the universal 
primitive Church. I may add, that it is the privilege of the 
English Prayer Book to be the only work which even pro- 
fesses thus to preserve and embody the primitive tradition. 
For the Church of Rome, be it observed, does not profess 
even to defer to antiquity. We have already seen that the 
ultra-protestants do actually bend to tradition (though not 

out, and that, as I fear we all of us sometimes almost unconsciously are, 
they were sometimes influenced by motives of expediency. And this is 
undoubtedly true. But then it is equally true, that in their zeal to coun- 
teract that ultra-protestant spirit whch is in our age leading to infidelity, 
the judgment of the pious and excellent writers of the Tracts may be 
also warped. Of course men of learning will inquire into the fact, 
whether, in estimating the value of any ancient usage, the Reformers in 
rejecting it, or the Tract writers in wishing its retention, are right. But 
in conversing with those who are unable to make the inquiry, 1 should 
advise them to stand by the Reformers. In making these observations, 
I do not mean to say that in instituting these inquiries the writers in 
question have not done right. The object of true Christians is not to 
maintain Protestantism as a faction, but to preserve in its purity the 
Gospel. In this good cause no persons have laboured more piously, 
with a more gentle and truly Christian spirit, and, blessed be God, with 
more success, than the writers of the Oxford Tracts. But they them- 
selves are most anxious not to form a party; they are most patient in 
hearing those who in the application of a common principle may differ 
from them. And we ought to read their works for information, rather 
than quote them as authoritative, until, by the consent of the learned 
world, their authority has been established. 



THE BASIS OF EDUCATION. 



181 



the primitive tradition,) while they reject the word. The 
papist, on the contrary, retains the word, perceiving its vast 
importance in argument, but rejects the things for by tradi- 
tion in the Church of Rome is meant, not the ancient doc- 
trines of the ancient Church, by which the Church of Rome 
is as much condemned as by the Bible, but whatever the 
particular Church of Rome has at any time, or may at this 
time decree.^ 

So much misrepresentation has taken place with reference 
to those, who, with all the great divines and reformers of 

^ It may be seen from what has been stated above, why the true- 
hearted sons of the Church of England set their faces, as it were a flint, 
against any proposal for an alteration of the Book of Common Prayer, 
so as to make it, as those who propose to do so would make it, more 
conformable to modern customs and modes of thought. They are not 
swayed by prejudice or by blind attachment to the things of days gone 
by, (though such prejudice and attachment would be laudable,) for it it 
were proposed calmly and candidly to act in the spirit of the Reformers, 
and to examine our present Prayer-Book by the existing records of anti- 
quity which we possess in the canons of the first councils and writings 
of the Fathers and other Liturgies, so as to be quite sure that every thing 
really valuable has been preserved by us, the opposition would be proba- 
bly relaxed. But knoAving how in times past, from a desire to accom- 
modate the Liturgy to the spirit of the existing age. the errors of Popery 
were .gradually introduced, they may greatly fear in any alterations, the 
introduction of errors, if not precisely similar, yet equally bad, were we 
to act now on the same principle ; for men are quite as likely to be 
fallible in an age of Latitudinarianism. as in an age of superstition. It 
is not with religion as it is with science ; for in religion, except as pro- 
phecies are graduallv fulfJled by the event, no fresh discoveries are to 
be made. In a revealed religion, a religion once, and once for all, 
delivered to the saints, the business of the Church is to preserve old 
truths, not to discover new ones. Well, then, may we fear that by any 
alteration, the Prayer Book, if it gain in symmetry, would lose some por- 
tion of that authority which it now possesses, as the interpreter and 
handmaid of Scripture. 
16 



I 



182 THE GOSPEL, AND THE GOSPEL ONLY, 

the Church of England, interpret Scripture according to 
primitive tradition, instead of that Calvinistic tradition which 
our opponents would compel us to adopt, that I must be 
pardoned for again remarking, that they attempt not to 
supersede the Holy Scriptures, or to add to them: all that 
they do is, when seeking, as all persons must do, some as- 
sistance to guide them to the right understanding of Scrip- 
ture on fundamental points, to refer to the doctrines directly 
or indirectly brought before them in the Prayer-Book, the 
authority of w^iich rests on its embodying the primitive 
system : and when they find the doctrine taught by the Bible, 
and the doctrine taught by the Prayer-Book, or, in other 
words, by the primitive tradition, conflaent, — flow^ing like 
the waters of the Rhone and Saone in one stream, though 
with distinguishable currents — they then feel sure that the 
meaning they attach to Scripture is the right meaning,™ that 
they know what the Gospel is, w^hat it is that God has re- 
vealed, and they listen not for one half moment to the "Uni- 
tarian," when he tries by the very fanaticism of criticism to 
attach some new meaning to the different texts by w4iich 
any doctrine is supported. The old Scriptures, understood 
in the old sense, lead us to the old doctrine, which was de- 
livered of old and once for all to the saints.^ 

^ The late, or rather the prevailing controversy, on the subject of edu- 
cation, is likely to lead to the re-establishment of certain almost forgotten 
principles. The supporters of the government measure naturally sup- 
posed that when they introduced the Bible, and the Bible only, as the 
basis of rehgious instruction, into their schools, those who have been so 
loud in their censures of high Churchmen, and' have been proclaiming 
that the Bible, and the Bible only, is their religion, would be contented. 
But not only has it been discovered that the propagation of the Gospel, 
is their object as well as ours, for which purpose the Bible and some- 
thing else, by their own showing is necessary : it has been, also, discovered 
that by the Bible, and the Bible only, is meant, not what the words 
would seem to imply, but the authorized version, and the authorized 



THE BASIS OF EDUCATION. 



183 



But though the principle of adopting a system to direct us 
to the right interpretation of Scripture be an important one, 
though into some system or other we cannot help falling, 
still it is liable to abuse, and in its abuse may lead to conse- 
quences much to be deplored. In order to avoid this, let me 

version only. But the authorized version is the Bible and something 
else, for every version must, to a certain extent, be a commentary. In 
a disputed passage it conveys the sense of the passage according to the 
notions of what is correct in the translator. If this were not so, why 
should we object to the Douay version, or to the Unitai-ian," version ? 
and why do Romanists and ''Unitarians" object to ours? We m.ay 
fairly ask, then. On what grounds do ultra-protestants insist on the ex- 
clusive use of the authorized version ? Have they compared it with the 
original ? Have they compared it with the versions which they con- 
demn? The Papists and the " Unitarians" ask of those who so strongly 
contend for the exclusive use of the authorized version, ' Do you think 
that the translators in the reign of James I. were infallible men ? It is 
replied, perhapis, the Romish and " Unitarian" translators were preju- 
diced. This is indeed to call names, but it is quite open to the Roman- 
ist and Unitarian to retort, that King James's translators were equally 
prejudiced : or shall the reply be, though I have not been able to ex- 
amine the diiferent versions myself, yet the learned Mr. A. and Dr. B. 
have done so, and they pronounce our version to be the correct one 1 
Then, surely, the answer of the Romanist is equally valid, Cardinal C. 
and Cardinal D. have examined and approved the Douay version. It 
seems to me that those who, on these grounds, insist upon the use of the 
authorized version, and the authorized version only, act in a spirit de- 
cidedly popish. Not so the true Churchman ; he says, I object to the 
Romish and ''Unitarian" versions, because they were avowedly con- 
ducted on a principle which a child may see to be erroneous. The 
Romish version was made in subservience to the novel dogmata of the 
Church of Rome, the Unitarian" version in deference to the private 
judgment of tlie translator. We, on the contraiT, can prove, from the 
directions given to our translators, that our version was made in defer- 
ence to primitive tradition. We claim, therefore, authority for that 
version which was professedly made on a principle which common sense 



184 



THE GOSPEL, AND THE GOSPEL ONLY, 



remind you of the legitimate object of every theological, 
system, which is to keep before the mind all those fundamen- 
tal truths which the Bible, rightly interpreted, makes known 
to us. But in framing their theological systems, divines have 
frequently erred by attempting to do more than this, by at- 
tempting, at the same time, to liarmoiiize the truths which 
are thus revealed. They have laboured to show how one 
truth has depended upon another truth, and how, from 
certain premises, conclusions, deemed inevitable by those 
who frame the system, must ensue. And in so doing they 
have blended with those articles of faith, which have been 
clearly revealed, their own deductions therefrom; and when 
these, the inferences of man, are dogmatically propounded 
with the same authority as the truths on which they rest, 
the popish error is unintentionally, though inevitably, com- 
mitted, of adding to Scripture, an error not necessarily 
attached to our principle, but one into which, as 1 have 
hinted before, the framer of a system may peradventure fall.^ 
When Luther, for example, not only asserts, the revealed 
fact, that the consecrated bread in the Eucharist is in some 
sense the body, and the consecrated wine in some sense the 
blood, of Christ, but by his doctrine of consubstantiation, 
appends to it. as of equal authority, his own explanation of 
that fact, he as much adds to Scripture as the Papist does 

must perceive to be right. Our translators were not infallible, but they 
acted on the right principle. By revising the version on their principle 
you may correct any errors they may have committed, but we protest 
against the introduction of a version avowedly -conducted on a wrong 
principle. Our princip> being observed, no eiTors, of course, of serious 
moment can have been committed : but on either of the other principles 
it is scarcely possible to avoid error. 

Because framers of systems have, without doubt, generally fallen into 
this error, men have drawn the hasty conclusion, which in the former 
part of this sermon I have combatted. that all systems must thus eiT. 



THE BASIS OF EDUCATION. 



185 



by his dogma of transubstantiation : and equally guilty of 
this error is Calvin, when to the doctrines of the omnipo- 
tence, the omniscience, the unaccountable sovereignty of the 
Deity, he adds, as if it were part of revelation, his doctrine of 
the divine decrees.^ 

But these compact, harmonizing, theological systems com- 
mend themselves to the indolence and the pride of man. 
What they profess is, that they contain the whole pith of 
Revelation, the marrow of theology: that, within a small 
compass, they present us with all that is important in the 
Bible. Indolent as the mind of man is, it will gladly exert 
itself, when seriously impressed, thus to master, once for 
all, the whole counsel of God. And he who imagines that 
he is fully acquainted with the whole of that mighty and 
mysterious scheme for the redemption of man, into vrhich 
angels desire to look, and which more scriptural Christians 
conceive will not be known, in its fulness, until the end shall 
have come— he, I say, will indulge in that pride vrhich 
thinks scorn of all whose views of divine truth appear to be 
less harmonized than his own; and, what is equally bad, he . 
is precluded from enquiring further into the truth as it is in 
Jesus. If a man supposes that he knows all that it is import- 
ant to know, he regards any accession of knowledge as un- 
important : and instead of being a humble disciple, seeking 
the truth, seeking to be enlightened more and more, he is 
exalted, in his own mind, into a judge of others. All he 
desires is to have the chosen doctrines of Revelation, on 
which his chosen syste]!! of theology insists as important, 

^Of course, -nsither Luther nor Calvin, nor any other framer of a sys- 
tem, would have advanced his peculiar tenets without appearing to 
have some scriptural authority for them. Their error consists in having 
assumed that their deductions from Scripture were infallible, and in 
ha\'ing consequently introduced their own opinions, whether right or 
\\Tong, among articles of faith. 
16* 



186 THE GOSPEL. A^D THE GOSPEL ONLY 



placed before him in same new point of view, supported by 
new arguments, or illusti-ated by the flowers of rhetoric. 
Every doctriEe. however scriptural, which is not at once 

reducible to the line an:; r::e?,5ure of his system, he spurns 
as useless, or rejects sviz'ii thoughtless indignation. And 
thus, instead of using his system as a guide to the under- 
standing of Scripture, he may be said rather to make use of 
Scripture to i::"?:ra:e liis system. Whoever preaches ac- 
cording to hi- 5"^:::.:.]? a Gospel preacher: whofv:: rro- 
daces lyvai Scripture doctrines opposed to his system is 
treated as an enemy of God: and thus, at length, we nnd his 
system superseding the Bible : whole portions of Scripture 
are unstudied because they bear not on that system to which 
he has £"iven the exclusive rirle of :l:e Gospel: and we 
actua'a Le .'yes. we Lra: ::. a :e aazstloud in com- 
plaining of Popery for its want of deference to Scripture, 
and its human inventions in religion — we actually hear them 
complaining of the Psalms, the sweet songs of Zion. given 
by inspi:'::::a :: God the Holy G'a:^:. u:a: :::e^- :ie act 
sufficieuriy ?; :: ::i;al !— we do actually nnd m some Prores- 
tant con^i e^: ai: as. where human inventions in religion are 
most loudly deprecated, the insphed Psalms superseded by 
the hymns of uninspired fallible men ! And does not this 
fact, my brethren, tell its own tale ? for why is this done ? 
Can it be because the Psala:? are - a u a -uran Xo : but 
human hymns may be rendered mxOi c . .:a: : niable to huma^n 
systems of religion. 

But not to pm'sue these observations further, I have re- 
ferred to these circumstances to show, that the very fact 
which is -:au-aa:e; u'ought as a charge :_amj: :dr a laarch 
system, is, in truth its recommendation. In om- sys:-m you 
will find no attempt to harmonize the ti'uths of Scriprure: 
they are, on the contrary, simply stated, or blended with 
our devotions, in the plain, unconnected, independent form. 



THE BASIS OF EDUCATION. 



187 



in which you find them in Scripture itself; there is no en- 
deavouring to supply any imaginary defects of Scripture, by 
filling up the scriptural outline ; articles of faith, as revealed 
by Scripture, interpreted according to primitive tradition, 
are asserted, and, as in the Athanasian Creed, vindicated 
from misrepresentation, but no deductions are made from 
them, except such as rest on the same authority. The sick 
man, for example, is merely examined whether he still 
believes the articles of the Apostles' Creed, which at his 
baptism he professed, but no questions are put as to his 
assurance, or as to his experiences. In our system the foun- 
dation is laid, but as to results, more or less rem.ote from 
the foundation, no dogma is propounded ; in short, those fund- 
amental truths are brought before us, which in the inter- 
pretation of Scripture are never to be lost sight of, and 
which being kept in view, it is scarcely passible to fall into 
heresy; but no nicely compacted scheme of theology is pre- 
sented to us; we have still to study the Bible, still to grow 
in knowledge as in grace, still to keep our place among 
learners, carefully watching for, and gratefully receiving 
each glimpse of additional light, which may make us better 
acquainted w^ith the will of that God vmom we love, and 
whom to serve is our dehght. 

Now the consequence of this undoubtedly is, that there 
are with, us many open questions, many matters of opinion, 
many points of theological doctrine and Christian prudence 
on which the divines of our Church may differ, without any 
impeachment of their orthodoxy. But this liberty which 
the Church allows is disrelished by men of sectarian minds 
and overbearing tempers, and they, desiring a more stringent 
system, add to the doctrine of the Church some other sys- 
tem, very frequently that of Calvin, which would bind us not 
only to principles but also to opinions. And as many of the 
opinions of Calvin, those, for example, which relate to the 



188 



THE GOSPEL, AND THE GOSPEL ONLY, 



sacrament of Baptism, are scarcely reconcileable with the 
principles asserted by the Church, they are very often led 
into those inconsistencies of which all must be guilty who 
endeavour to serve two masters ; sometimes they have to 
explain away the principles of the Church, sometimes the 
dogmata of Calvin. But were they only inconsistent, our 
cause of com.plaint against them would be comparatively 
slight; but not slight is the cause of our complaint, when 
we find them actually venturing to anathematize as heretical 
all who do not, as they do, make additions to the system of 
the Church, and subscribe to the traditions of a Zuinglius, 
or a Calvin, or of some other fallible man, whose opinions, 
by a mere ■petitio principii, they are pleased to pronounce to 
be scriptural. They assume that their system is the Gospel, 
and then they treat the opponents of that system as the 
enemies of God. And is not this Popery? Why does 
Popery so stink. in the nostrils of our people? It is because 
the fires of Smithfield are not yet forgotten, and however 
zealous, however devout Mary and her assessors may have 
been, that system of religion is justly odious which generates 
a temper directly the reverse of that which genuine Christi- 
anity would instil into our minds. Why did the Komanist 
in times past have recourse to the thumb-screw and the 
stake ? It was only to silence the opponents of that sys- 
tem of theology which he had conscientiously, though 
erroneously, identified with the Gospel. And to what are 
w^e to attribute the evil-speaking, lying and slandering by 
which the ultra-protestant press is so -sadly distinguished, 
to what the propagation if not the invention of those calum- 
nies against all who are opposed to Calvinism, to what but 
to the same persecuting spirit and unchristian temper which 
seeks the same end, to silence an opponent by means dififerent 
indeed, but equally unjustifiable ? My brethren, you have 
heard much said of late of those members of the Church of 



THE BASIS OF EDUCATION 



189 



England, who in interpreting Scripture defer to primitive 
rather than to Calvinistic tradition, as if they were introduc- 
ing among us the distinctive principles of Popery : if the 
charge be true, I, for one, regret it, for I believe the dis- 
tinctive doctrines of Popery to be as unscriptural as the dis- 
tinctive doctrines of Calvinism : but let me be permitted for 
once to change the theme, and let me warn you of an evil 
worse than all the doctrines of Popery put together ; let me 
warn you of the evils of a Popish temper. And to a Popish 
temper, as we have seen, too great a devotion to a harmon- 
ized theological system is ever likely to lead. For one of 
the tendencies of such an attachment to system is to make 
men confound religion with their opinions. And as men 
generally maintain their opinions, as w^e daily see in the 
case of politics, or even in the chance argument of conversa- 
tion, with a degree of violence, intolerance, and bigotry, 
which sometimes almost amounts to dementation, so will 
they act with respect to their religious opinions. So vio- 
lently do men contend for their opinions, that in a dispute 
about the mere meaning of a w^ord, you will find commenta- 
tors acting as if they w^ould tear one another to pieces ; and 
of course when men have in their minds identified these 
opinions with religion, the violence with which they will 
support these opinions will be in proportion to the increased 
importance of the subject. Idolaters of a system, they love, 
like other idolaters, to lash themselves into a fury, and then, 
because wrath is forbidden in Scripture, they call it zeal.™ 

™W8 sometimes hear Calvinistic Churchmen represented as more 
liberal than their brethren. Why ? because they fraternize with a few 
Calvinistic Dissenters. But then it is to be remembered that they 
anathematize as non-gospel preachers all their non-Calvinistic brethren 
in the Church ; that is to say, two or three Clergymen in a district con- 
sign to perdition two or three hundred of their brethren in the neigh- 
bourhood, and are styled liberal because they associate with two or 
three Dissenting ministers v.-ho do the same. 



190 THE GOSPEL. AND THE GOSPEL OXLY. 



Now to guard against these sins, resulting from an abuse 
of the principle I have before enforced, let me warn you 
that the fault of these persons consists in theu* regarding 
their system as an end in itself. Whereas, even the right 
system is only to be valued as a means, — the means to ena- 
ble us to understand God's word. Even the knowledge of 
God's word is itself to be regarded not as an end, but as the 
means, like the Sacraments, of bringing us to Christ; and 
this union with Christ is the end of the Gospel. For Christ 
is our all in all. It is only by reference to Christ that any 
doctiine is valuable, and if it lias reference to Christ, there 
is no doctrine whatever (however trivial those may think it 
who regard as trivial all that bears not on their chosen sys- 
tem,) whiqh does not by that very fact become of value. 
Man is nothing ; Christ is every thing. In Christ is salva- 
tion, out of Christ is condemnation. In Christ is the law of 
the Spirit, out of Christ the bondage of the flesh. In Christ 
man can please God, out of Christ, God is to man a consum- 
ing fire, a terrible God. In Christ man partakes of the di- 
vine nature, out of Christ he is but one remove from the 
beasts that perish. In union with Him. is health, safety, 
and life : in separation from him, insecurity, misery, death. 

Yes, my brethren, union with Christ is the one thing 
needful : our first main care ought to be that we may be one 
with Christ, and Christ one with us. Hence we find in our 
text, that with an injunction to preach the Gospel, our Lord 
combines a command to administer the sacrament of Bap- 
tism, as if on purpose to impress upon our minds the fact 
that it is not mere religious knowledge that we are to impart 
but such knowledge as shall lead us to union with Him : that 
our object is to make, not evangelical philosophers, but Chris- 
tians ; that our object ought to be not merely to make men 
hold such and such opinions, as opinions, but to embrace 
that faith which will lead them to God through Christ, and 



THE BASIS OF EDUCATION. 



191 



to Christ through the Church. Through the Church, I 
say; for we must always remember that to impress upon our 
minds the importance of union with the Church, the Church is 
represented in Scripture as the spouse of Christ; that of the 
Church it is said, Thy Maker is thine Hushcmd, the Lord of 
Hosts is his ncme, and thy Redeemer the holy one of Israel : 
the God of the ichole eartlt si tall he he called.'^ I will let roth 
thee unto me for erer, saitlt tlte Lord ; yea^ I will hetroth thee 
unto 77ie.° It is impossible to read the Old Testament with- 
out being struck with the many, the constant applications of 
this figure of speech, Vv-hicli would not, of course, be so often, 
so constantly used, if it were not intended to convey a deep 
and important meaning^ — a meaning expressive of love on 
the part of God, of confidence on the part of the Church. 
Many and touching are the allusions to the virgin daughter 
of Zion, the betrothed of Jehovah; many the exhortations, 
AicaJce, aicake, put on strength^ O Zion ; put on thy heauti- 
ful garments, O Jerusalem, thou holy city."^ 3Iany are the 
denunciations against the daughter of Jerusalem (when by 
committing sin, when by some national act, she gave coun- 
tenance to idolatry, and deserted the Lord.) under the cha- 
racter of a Vv-ife committing adultery. It is this, indeed, 
which gives its deep spiritual meaning to the Canticles — a 
book truly evangelical in its meaning, when understood as 
primitive tradition teaches us to understand it, as relating to 
the mystical union betwixt Christ and His Church — -a book 
except thus understood, utterly destitute of a spiritual sense. 
Nor let it be surmised, that these sayings of Scripture have 
only reference to the Church under the Jewish dispensation : 

^ Is. liv. 5. ° Is. Ixii 5. Pis. lii. 1. 

^ See Theodoret's admirable Commentary on the Song of Solomon, 
a translation of which, by the learned Mr. Poole, Incumbent of St. 
James's Church, Leeds, in the course of publication in The Voice of 
ike Church* 



192 



THE GOSPEL, AND THE GOSPEL ONLY, 



Come hither^ said the angel to St. John; I loill show thee the 
Bride, the Lamh^s wife 'j"^ and then follows a mystical de- 
scription of the Church. It was as a chaste virgin that St. 
Paul espoused the Church to one husband, Christ. Of this 
mystery the same holy Apostle represents the union of man 
and wife to be but a type. And what says St. John the 
divine? I heard, as it were, the voice of a great multitude, 
and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty 
thunderings, saying, Hallelujah, for the Lord God omnipo- 
tent reigneth ; let us he glad and rejoice, and give honour to 
him : for the marriage of the Lamh is come, and his Wif^ 
hath made her ready. And to her was granted that she should 
he arrayed in fine linen, clean and white ; for the fine linen 
is the righteousness of the saints.^ 

Now would all this, I ask again; be said in Scripture, and 
said so often, for no purpose ? with no object in view? No. 
The second person of the blessed Trinity, our Lord and 
Saviour Jesus Christ, is in very deed the bridegroom and 
husband, and the Church is His bride and spouse. Be it so. 
And what follows ? Our Lord says of man and wife, that 
they are no more twain but one flesh, and his inspired Apos- 
tle, St. Paul, iterates the assertion, " they two shall be one 
flesh." And this divine principle is admirably expanded by 
the old law of England, the excellence of which, though but 
little noted, is the fact of its being based on Scripture. By 
marriage," says the learned author of the Commentaries on 
the Laws of England, "the husband and wife are one person 
in law, that is, the very being or legal existence of the 
woman is suspended during the marriage, or at least is incor- 
porated and consolidated into that of the husband ; under 
whose wing, protection, and cover, she performs every 
thing. "^ So that what the husband has belongs equally to 
the wife, what the wife has belongs equally to her husband ; 

"^Rev. xxi. 9. ^Rev. xix. 7, 9. ^Blackstone, vol. i. p. 441. 



THE BASIS OF EDUCATION. 



193 



they are perfectly identified. And so are Christ and His 
Spouse identified in the sight of God — so identified that the 
Church is often denominated the very body of Christ, the 
fulness of Him who filleth all in all, and the members of the 
Church are regarded as members of Christ: because Christ 
is holy, the Church (though consisting of sinful men) is ac- 
counted in the counsels of God as holy : as the Spirit of God 
dwelleth without measure in Christ, so He abideth for ever 
in the Church : as Christ sitteth at the right hand of the 
Father, expecting till His enemies be made His footstool, so 
the Church confides in His protection that the gates of hell 
shall not prevail against her: and if we, individuals, be living 
members of the Church, doing all such good works as God 
hath prepared for us to walk in, to us the merits of Christ 
will be imputed, and we shall be, with the Church of which 
we are part, accounted holy; to us the Spirit of Christ will 
be imparted, and we shall be made holy : against us the 
powers of darkness will never prevail, for He who cherisheth 
the Church, and every living member of the same, is 
almighty: and thus, as the Apostle concludes, all things 
are yours, ivhether Paul, or Apollos^ or Cephas, or the world, 
or life and death, or things present, or things to come, all are 
yours ; and ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's,'"'' But sup- 
pose the Church to be as she is represented, a person, we 
cannot any one of us be the whole of that person: we can 
only be, as it were, one of the particles by the aggregate of 
which she is formed : and again we must remember that a 
living person consists of two parts, of body and of soul ; and 
so, therefore, it is with respect to the Church; consequently, 
with both the body and the soul of the Church we shall be 
connected if vv^e are really members of the spouse of Christ. 

Owing to the circumstance of their looking to one class of 
texts to the exclusion of another class of texts, men are found 
"I'Cor, iii. 21.23. 

17 



194 



THE GOSPEL, AND THE GOSPEL ONLY, 



to err; some in supposing that they are safe when attached 
merely to the body of the Church, others when attached 
merely to the soul of the Church. It is clear that we are 
attached to the body of Christ's Church by those ordinances 
which the Church, with the divine sanction, has ordained 
for the purpose. But a limb, though attached to the natural 
body, may be paralyzed or putrified; a wen, a wart is attach- 
ed to the body, but is regarded merely as an unsightly ex- 
crescence : it is only the healthy parts of the body which, 
being animated by the soul, have life and vigour ; animated, 
I say, by the soul ; for as soon as the soul departs, each part 
of the body becomes like the putrified limb, — a lifeless lump. 
So may it be with respect to the Church. By the reception 
of the sacraments, and the observance of the ordinances, we 
may be attached to the body of the Church, and yet all the 
while be but dead members of it, paralyzed portions of it, 
worse than useless. We are then only living members 
thereof, when, attached to the body by ordinances, we are 
attached also to the soul by faith. Thus it is that the Chmxh 
requires faith in all who approach her ordinances ; because 
to those who approach without faith they are the means, not 
of grace, but of condemnation. He is not safe who observes 
ordinances merely; and he is not safe who, rejecting the 
divinely-appointed ordinances, has merely faith: the two 
are to be united. Nothing is clearer than this, if, dismissing 
from your mind modern traditions, you will consult the 
Scriptures. As to union with the hody^ we are told we, 
being many, are one body in Christ, and that, therefore, we 
are members one of another. We are told that as the hus- 
band is head of the wife, even so Christ is the head of the 
Church, and He is the Saviour of the body. And we are 
told how and when it is we become members of that body ; 
for by one Spirit, even the Holy Ghost, we are baptised into 
this body, and being in it we continue in it by being partak- 



THE BASIS OF EDUCATION. 



195 



ers of one bread, even Jesus Christ, who, as He is the sup- 
port of the body in all His ordinances, is especially so in the 
sacrament of His Body and Blood. And in the epistle to 
the Ephesians we are taught that there is one body and one 
spirit ; and when it is said our hearts are purified by faith, 
that we are justified by faith, that we are sanctified by faith, 
it is clear that we are attached to the soul of the Church by 
faith. Hence, if we would be safe, we must be attached to 
the body and soul of the Church, the spouse of Christ, by a 
reception with faith of the sacraments and ordinances. He 
is not scriptural who says, I have faith, and therefore I need 
not the sacraments and ordinances ; and he is not scriptural 
who says, I observe the sacraments and ordinances, and 
therefore I need not faith. And yet we may easily imagine 
cases in which exceptions may be made. For instance, an 
infant at baptism is attached to the soul as well as the body 
of the Church, but ceases to be attached to the soul of the 
Church when he grows up, if he does not likewise grow in 
faith: he becomes (to revert to my former comparison,) a 
putrified, paralyzed, dead member of the body. . Again, a 
person living in a heathen land is deprived of those ordinances 
by which he might attach himself to the body of the Church, 
and yet by faith he may be united to her soul. The same 
may be said of those who, through unavoidable ignorance, 
know not what the true Church is, and therefore neglect 
one part of their duty, but are, though not sacramentally, 
still by faith united with her. 

Thus we see why oar Lord, in the text, besides exhorting 
us to preach the truth as it is in Him, directs us also to ad- 
minister the sacrament of baptism. We are both to teach 
men the truth that they may have faith, aiid (not deeming 
this sufficient) to unite them to His Church, — the one ulti- 
mate end being to unite men to Christ. And thus we may 
also see how possible it is to avoid the extreme, to the 



196 



THE GOSPEL, AND THE GOSPEL ONLY, 



viciousness of which I have before alluded. E.est not oh 
your opinions, but on Christ. And yet attend carefully to 
your doctrine ; because, as you increase in religious know- 
ledge with this end in view, you will be ever finding fresh 
means of having communion with Christ and of receiving 
communications from Him; the more you know of His will 
the better will you be able to serve Him. Rest not on your 
faith, but on Christ; but pray for an increase of faith, because 
the stronger your faith, the firmer will be your reliance upon 
Him. Eest not on your works, but on Christ; but seek for 
grace to persevere in good works, since it is only by a patient 
continuance in well-doing that you can be rendered meet 
for the glory which Christ is preparing for those who love 
Him. Rest not on the Church, but on Christ; but through 
the Sacrament's and ordinances of the Gospel be in commu- 
nion with the Church ; because it is through communion 
with His spouse that you are to have communion with 
Christ, and through communion with Christ have commu- 
nion with God, the divine and human natures being in Christ 
united. And so, too, we add, rest not on the system of theo- 
logy vrith which the Church provides you, but use that sys- 
tem with humility, that you may, by its help understand 
your Bible, and thence learn more and more of that counsel 
of God which is ever to be our study until all of it shall be 
known,— -a blessing in this life never to be fully attained. 

These are the principles, my brethren, the good old prin- 
ciples of the religion of Christ, for holding which we are 
traduced and maligned, misrepresented by designing vncked- 
ness, and misunderstood by uninquiring folly. These are 
what are denominated high Church principles, by holding 
which, if in the world's eye we are regarded, as the Apostles 
were, fools and the off-scouring of all things, we are at least 
able to give a reason for our conduct when we refuse to lend 
our aid to the establishment of any plan of education which. 



THE BASIS OF EDUCATION. 197 

though professedly based on rehgion, and the religion of the 
Bible, and the Bible only, (for remark, this is what was 
lately offered to us.) does not tend, in our estimation, to 
briog men to Christ, that one great end of all religious know- 
ledge as well as of all rehgious ordinances. And these are 
those principles on which we may with confidence appeal to 
you in behalf of the charity schools of this great and impor- 
tant town. The pious parents of the poor ask you, through 
me, to enable them to bring their children to Christ, and to 
teach them ah things whatsoever Christ has commanded. 
Are you Christians in deed and in truth ? Then to the 
appeal you must respond; for if you are Christians verily 
and indeed, not by profession only, not by baptism only, but 
by the due use to those high spiritual privileges to which 
in baptism you were elected, then your hearts must be glow- 
ing with love to God and man; and if this be so, I may 
surely say to you, as the Apostle did to the Corinthians, "as 
touching the ministering of the saints it is superfluous for 
me" to speak to you. Your hearts are ready ; and as you 
have freely received, freely you will give. There are, let me 
add, some poor children here, the oftspring of vicious pa- 
rents, poor children who have been nursed in the lap of in- 
famy, and whose young ears, in their homes, hear nothing 
but the sounds of blasphemy; — they, too, appeal to you by 
.me ; they implore you to rescue them from the malaria of 
their homes, to enable them to breathe the pure atmosphere 
of these schools : they entreat, they implore you, by all the 
mercies of reedeeming love, to administer an antitode to that 
poison which would otherwise destroy them; and while 
those who ought to be their protectors are leading them in 
the way of Satan, they supplicate you, or rather, it is the 
Lord Jesus Christ, it is the Saviour who died to save you, it 
is your God, who commands you to suffer these children to 
come unto Him; — by the support of these schools to pra- 
17* 



196 THE GOSPEL, AND THE GOSPEL ONLY, &c. 



vide that the Gospel may be preached to them : so preached 
and so taught, that they may know all things whatsoever 
He has commanded, while, united to Christ by faith and 
through the sacraments and ordinances of religion, they may 
find grace and strength to fulfil the same. Again I ask you, 
are you verily and indeed the servants and soldiers of Jesus 
Christ? If you be, when He commands, you will obey. 
You know what His command in this respect is ; and when 
you look upon these little ones your hearts will rejoice to 
think that His command and your own inclinations coincide. 



SERMON IX. 



(Houm of ^Jastoral Dnt^ 

OF A MINISTER OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND, 



AN INAUGURAL DISCOURSE. 



To declare unto you all the counsel of God.*'— -Acts xx. 27. 

Averse though I am from any allusions to myself in the 
pulpit, yet I feel that in taking possession of this vast and 
important cure, and in addressing you for the first time from 
this pulpit, it may be fairly expected on your part, and can- 
not be improper on mine, to state to you plainly and frankly 
the principles upon \yhich I propose to act, and the doctrines 
of truth which it will be my endeavour to promulgate. 

Let me tell you then, in the first place, my brethren, that 
you see before you one to whom God has given a desire to 
do his duty in that station of life unto which by the provi- 
dence and grace of his Saviour he has been called, — a 
fallible and sinful man it is true, but one in whom, if the 
flesh be sometimes weak, the spirit is undoubtedly willing. 
But it is among fallible and sinful men that I, a fallible and 
sinful man, am appointed to labour: let us remember this on 
both sides. May you, my brethren, judge without severity 
of my infirmities, and God Almighty grant that I may ever 
set an example of Chi'istian. charity in my feelings towards 

you. 

When I have said that I am willing, desirous, anxious to 
do my duty, as these are not mere empty words, I have said 



200 



THE COURSE OF PASTORAL DUTY OF 



much. In so extensive a field it is not possible that I can 
become personally acquainted with all of my parishioners — 
scarcely possible that this should be the case with respect 
even to all the members of my immediate congregation. 
But to the furtherance of every public work which I believe 
to be conducive to the welfare, whether temporal^ intel- 
lectual, moral, or religious, of the inhabitants of the parish, 
I shall rejoice to give my labour and my time ; and, though 
deriving my authority to minister in sacred things from no 
human source, receiving my commission from Christ Him- 
self, in the exercise of that commission and authority I shall 
consider myself as your servant. And I entreat you to 
summon me whenever or wheresoever you think that my 
ministry is needed. As far as my physical strength will 
admit, I shall be ready to obey when summoned by any 
parishioner, be he rich, or be he poor, be he high, or be he 
low, to the bed of sickness, or to the house of mourning. 
Whoever wants a friend with whom to take counsel or to 
pray, will find in me one ready to stand in such a relation to 
him ; perhaps not always skilful to advise, but ever with a 
heart prepared to sympathise, whether in affliction or in joy, 
ever anxious, in season and out of season, to awaken the im- 
penitent, to convert the ungodly, to warn the timid, to infuse 
hope into the dejected, to solace the dying. My poorer 
brethren, to you especially I would be a friend, ready to 
assist you in your temporal distresses, in proportion to my 
means, and certainly most ready to administer to you those 
spiritual consolations needful to all, but especially to you. 

1 know not how better than this I can make out the course 
of pastoral duty I would prescribe to myself. Each day 
that I kneel down before the throne of grace, I will com- 
mend to the care of my heavenly Father the whole body of 
my parishioners, imploring Him to direct me by his special 
providence to those abodes where I may be in His hands aa 



A MINISTER OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND, 201 



instrument of good : and of yau, my brethren, I ask, not 
only that you send for rae whenever you think my attendance 
can be of service, but also (this I do earnestly, fervently en- 
treat of you.) that you remember me in your prayers, so 
that in my weakness God's strength may be manifest. 

And now as to my doctrine. You see before you a firm, 
determined, consistent, uncompromising, devoted, but I hope 
not uncharitable son, servant, and minister of the honoured 
Church of England. It is as a minister of the Church of Eng- 
land that I am placed here. I am not placed here to indulge 
in speculations of my own as to what J may think to be useful 
or what /may think to be expedient — I am instituted under the 
Bishop to administer the dlsdjjline^ the sacraments, and the doc- 
trines of Christ as the Lord hath convnanded, and as this Church 
and recdrn hath received the same. I am to labour for the sal- 
vation of souls and the edification of the Church, but not in 
ways and modes of my own devising, but according to the 
laws, the regulations, the spirit of the English Church. 
And immediately that I find that I cannot conscientiously 
adhere to those rules and act in this spu'it, I shall tender my 
resignation to the Bishop, and feel myself bound, not only as 
a Christian, but as a man of honour, to retire from a situa- 
tion the duties of which I cannot discharge. The Church 
is not infallible, but as we find her now in existence in this 
country I believe her not to be in error, and my conduct 
shall always be regulated by her authorized decisions. I 
shall do more than this, — I shall ponder on the spirit in 
which the reformation of the Church of England was con- 
ducted, and I shall thus endeavour to act, not coldly accord- 
ing to the letter of her rubrics, but according to the fulness 
of their spirit and meaning. Does the Church of England 
direct us for guidance in doubtful cases to the four first 
general councils, — does she in her canons enjoin — Let 
preachers ahove cdl things he careful that they never teach 



202 



THE COURSE OF PASTORAL DUTY OF 



aught in a sermon to he religiously held and believed hy the 
people, except that which is agreeable to the doctrine of the Old 
and New Testament, and tvhich the Catholic Fathers'^ and 
ancient Bishops have collected from that doctrine ? I will en- 
deavour to act upon this rule. So far as my intention is 
concerned, you shall never find me confounding doubtful 
conjectures with indubitable facts ; you shall never find me 
splitting hairs or contesting about chimeras ; you shall never 
hear from me those fanciful interpretations of prophecy 
which, like bubbles, break as soon as they are blown, and 
are like the last year's flies forgotten ; but without being dan- 
gerously lax or impracticably rigid, I will lay before you the 
great duties of your profession as Christians, and carefully 
and prayerfully compare all the doctrines I advance with 
those which hkve universally been received in the primitive 
ages. What the Church asserts T will lay before you, 
assuming you to be Churchmen, and I will prove from 
Scripture that the assertions of the Church are scriptural. 
When this cannot be done, when the Church and the Scrip- 
ture are at variance, I shall adhere to the Scripture and quit 
the Church. For most heartily do I subscribe to that grand 
doctrine of our Church, that holy Scripture containeth all 
things necessary to salvation: so that whatsoever is not read 
therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not required of any man 
that it should be believed, as an article of faith, or be thought 
requisite or necessary to salvation. Where Scripture is quite 
clear, there all parties are agreed. But the question must 
often occur — (else whence comes dissent — whence disputes 
in the Church itself?) — the question must often occur, what 
is proved thereby ? The Trinitarian tells us that his doc- 

^ The reader need scarcely be reminded that by Catholic Fathers 
the Church alludes to the early writers of the Church Universal. To 
speak of the Roman Catholics or Papists as Catholics, is quite a 
modern error, the result of inadvertence or of ignorance. 



A MINISTER OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 203 



trine is proved thereby: the Socinian says the same of his, — 
so is it with the Papist, the Independent, the Anabaptist, the 
Churchman. Now it is in these disputed questions that the 
Churchman refers, not to the opinion of this reformer or 
that, — not to the conjecture of one doctor or of another doc- 
tor — but, where it can be ascertained, to the practices of 
those first churches w^hich were instituted by the Apostles 
themselves, and the universal practice of those early churches 
is taken into account as throwing light upon a litigated 
Scripture; not, observe, as superseding Scripture, but as 
indicating, when two or more meanings may be attached to 
one and the self same passage, which is the meaning, as en- 
abling us to ascertain, not w^iat the Scripture can be made 
to say by ingenious men, but what actually is the mind of 
the Spirit. For example, when texts are adduced to prove 
the doctrine of the Trinity, the Socinian has recourse to his 
lexicons, and says these texts may by possibility receive 
another interpretation. Our answer is, the meaning that we 
attach to those passages is precisely the meaning attached to 
them by the early Christians, who certainly held the doc- 
trine of the Trinity, and, therefore, we conclude that the 
plan literal meaning in which we understand them is exactly 
the sense in which they ought to be received. The Papist 
then advances with his doctrine of Transubstantiation, and, 
quoting the words of Christ's institution, claims the literal 
meaning as being on his side. We can silence him at once 
by shewing that this doctrine of Transubstantiation was not 
heard of till the ninth, nor authoritatively received till the 
thirteenth century. Here, again, then, we have antiquity 
assisting us in our interpretation of Scripture — as is the 
case, also, with respect to the change of the Sabbath day, 
the rite of infant Baptism, and other doctrines or practices 
of importance. But does the English Church speak slight- 
ingly of the Scriptures because she adopts this mode of inter- 



204 



THE COURSE OF PASTORAL DUTY OF 



pretation wlieu the meauing of a Scripture is ambiguous: 
because she thus looks to the Fathers as to h^ht-houses for 
guidance when the sun of revelation happens not to be shin- 
ing in its meridian brightness ? Xo : in one of the homilies 
she appropriates the words of one of the ancients whom she 
delights to honour, and says that tliese hooks, the looJcs of 
Scripture, oiiglit to be niuch. in our licinds. in our eyes, in our 
ears, in o-/-^ "\:i'''\s. b\i^ most in our hearts. For the Scripture 
of God L ■ ' '.cat for our souls, the hea.rin 2: and keeping: 

of it mak^:^ ^> ^'X^s^^L >■:/": '~ ' -'']::l:c:': us ho!'.' : i: ^urn- 

eth our soids : tt is a ugUi Ij l-.': ree: : d is a sure, steadfast, 
everlasting instrument of salvation : it giveth icisdorn to the 
humhle ■ i: omfortetJi, ?naJceth glad, cheer eth 

and chcr.: . . ^ : ^>.:V;; v; it is a ?nore excellent jeusel or 
treasure tnan anu gold or precious stone : it is more siceet dan 
honey and : p'Oomb : it is called the hest part which 
kSlary did c^i-^-s^. p^'-r it Jiath everlasting comfort. Believing 
all this, and more than this, if more can be said, of the 
blessings which result from a prayerful study of Scripture — 
having myseh' experie/ictd the blessings which attend that 
sacred and pleasant exercise — believing that in the Bible 
you will lind your wisest counsellor in the pride and gairv of 
youthful spirits and the busy scenes of active life. — your 
support, your staff, and your stay in the infirmities of age. 
— your sweetest solace, your dearest consolation, in the day 
of your sickness or your sorrow — I will let no man surpass 
me in my zeal for the circulation of the Sacred Volume, 
though I may use for the medium of its circulation, in pre- 
ference to any other institution, the Society for promoting 
Christian Knowledge, — that society \^'hich has been con- 
ducted by Churchmen for nearly a century and a half, and 
which, during nearly a century, was the only society estab- 
lished for the distribution of the Scriptures ; just as for mis- 
sionary purposes I give my support to the sister society, that 



A MINISTER OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 205 



for Propagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts, — both being 
under the superintendence of our Bishops — the chief pastors 
of our Church. 

Thus, taking my doctrine from the vScriptures, which I 
reverence and love, under the guidance of the Church, to 
whose authority I am bound by the most solemn vows to 
defer, until I quit it, / shall lay before you all the counsel of 
God, I shall not select one or two doctrines, and, repre- 
senting these, because fundamental, as all-sufficient, overlook 
in carelessness or reject in rashness all the rest, — for if this 
kind of preaching would suffice, why should the Bible be so 
thick a book, or rather such a large collection of Books? 
No: whatsover God has thought lit to reveal, whether it re- 
late to doctrine, to the conduct of individuals, or to the discip- 
line of the Church: whatsoever things are true, ichatsoever 
things o:re honesty irliatsoever things are just, whatsoever things 
are pure, ivhatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of 
good report, if there he any virtue, or if there he any vraise, 
to these I shall as occasion offers call your thoughts. I shall 
never forget to remind you of the fallen, sinful, helpless, 
hopeless, condition of our nature — of the remedy, the only 
remedy, provided for our redemption in the atoning blood 
and sanctifying Spirit of Jehovah manifest in the flesh, — of 
Him, the Lord Jesus Christ, that name beside which there 
is none other given unto man whereby we can be saved, — 
of His spotless virtues. His uparalleled sufferings. His in- 
conceivable agonies — of the propitiation effected by the cross, 
— of the pledge afforded by His resurrection — (that resur- 
rection, the proof, tlie cause, and the model of our own) — 
that by divine justice this propitiation was accepted — of the 
Holy Ghost the Comforter, who came down from heaven on 
the day of Pentecost to confound and to convert the world, 
and who still abideth with the Church to cherish, actuate, 
and inform us with spiritual life and motion — of the awful 
18 



206 



THE COURSE OF PASTORAL DUTY OF 



mystery of the Divine nature subsisting in three co-equal, co- 
eternal persons, the holy, blessed, and undivided Trinity — of 
the tremendous day when all men shall rise again with their 
bodies, and shall give an account of their own works, w4ien 
they that have done good shall go into life everlasting, and they 
that have done evil into everlasting fire. Of these things, I 
shall, by God's blessing, constantly preach, so enforcing the 
necessity of good works as never to forget that they are to 
be based upon faith ; so enforcing faith as never to forget 
that if it be a living faith, it must, of necessity, lead to holi- 
ness of life ; so insisting upon holiness of life as always to 
remember that it must result from that newness of heart 
which can only be effected in our fallen nature, through the 
supernatural operation, the sanctifying influences of God, the 
blessed Spirit, Upon the soul. If any man, says St. Paul, he 
in Christ, he is a neiv creature. It is by the Holy Ghost, and 
by Him only, that the love of God can he shed abroad in our 
heart. Except a man he horn again, he cannot enter into the 
hvigdom of God. It is hy the icashing of regeneration and 
the reneicing of the Holy Ghost that he must he saved. Verily^ 
says our blessed Saviour Himself, in the 6th chapter of St. 
John, except ye eat of the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink 
His hlood, ye have no life in you. 

Ever, then, my brethren, will it be my duty to exhort you 
and to remind myself that we are to seek the renewal of our 
nature by the sanctification of the Holy Ghost — and this we 
must do by meditation and by prayer, and by reading of the 
Scriptures, and by hearing of the Word, but above all and 
especially by the due and proper use of the Sacraments — 
for, as the Church teaches, (instilling the doctrine into the 
minds of the very babes in Christ,) the Sacraments are out- 
ward and visihle signs of an inward and spiritual grace, given 
unto us, ordained hy Christ himself as a means ivherehy, by 
which, we receive the saiiie, i. e. the inward spiritual grace, 



A MINISTER OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 207 



'■^ and a pledge to assure us thereof^^^ i. e. to assure us that 
we have received the inward grace when we have worthily 
received the Sacraments. As the Church teaches, so shall 
I, the minister of the Church, that the inward and spiritual 
grace in the Sacrament of Baptism is a death unto sin and a 
neio hirth unto righteousness, for being hy nature horn in sin, 
we are herehy,^^ i. e. by Baptism, 7nade the children of grace. 
And yet as the Church teaches so shall I, that the infection 
of nature doth remain, yea in fJiem tltat are regenerated, and 
that AFTER ice have received the Holy Ghost we may depart 
from grace given, and fcdl into sin. As, then, the grace 
given in Baptism may be unproductive like seed hid in un- 
cultivated ground, so shall I never cease to exhort you to 
make your calling and election sure, by turning from dead 
works to serve the living God, by stirring up the grace that 
is in you, by living a life of repentance, by praying that God 
who forgiveth the sins of all them that are penitent may 
create in you new and contrite hearts. I shall never cease 
to exhort you to sustain and support your spiritual life by 
frequent communion with God, in the other sacrament, the 
Sacrament of the Lord's Supper. And while with the 
Church I shall contend against the Papist that Transubstan- 
tiation, or the change of the substance of bread and wine in the 
Supper of the Lord, cannot be proved by Holy Writ, but is 
repugnant to the plain words of Scripture, overthroweth the 
nature of a sacrament, and hath given occasion to many super- 
stitions, I shall ever tell you for your comfort, and shew from 
Sci'ipture the truth of what the Church asserts, that in that 
sacrament tJie Body and Blood of Christ, in some mysterious 
inexplicable manner, are verily and indeed taken and received 
by the faithful, to the strengthening and refreshing of their 
souls. 

Nor shall I fear, moreover, to contend for what one would 
think common sense must suggest, that for the administra- 



208 



THE COURSE OF PASTORAL DUTY OF 



tion of these means of grace we ought to be able to produce 
the proof that we have commission and authority, not from 
man but from Jesus Christ Himself, the only source of 
spiritual authority and power; and therefore I shall take 
occasion, whenever it shall be needful, to shew that, by an 
unbroken succession traced step by step (through the same 
accredited records of historical fact by which the volume of 
inspiration is proved to have a divine origin,) from the 
Apostles dovvm to our present Bishops, the Bishops, Priests, 
and Deacons of the Church of England, can satisfactorily 
'prove to the inquirer their commission to act as the ambassa- 
dors of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. And 
in asserting this, shall I give unnecessary offence to my dis- 
senting friends, and many such I hope to have ? I say no. 
I, for my part?, think better things of the candid, honest 
conscientious Dissenter. By vindicating the doctrine and 
discipline of the Church of England, I do indeed by implica- 
tion assert that he is in error. But does not he do the same 
by us ? Does not he imply that we are in error when he 
secedes from our communion or refuses to conform to it ? 
This he must do if he would justify his secession. And if 
he does think us in error, he will never find in me one who 
will censure him for explaining to his hearers the ground 
of his dissent. However erroneous I may consider those 
grounds, I shall ever contend that he is more than justified, 
he is hound to state them honestly and fairly to his people ; 
only let all things be done in charity and gentleness and cour- 
tesy. What I ask, then, for myself is no more than what 1 
am fully prepared to concede. If the Dissenter tell his 
people why they ought to secede, thereby implying that the 
Conformist is in error, let not the Nonconformist blame us 
for telling our people why they ought to love the Church ; 
why they owe allegiance to the Church, even though the 
censure of the seceders may seem to ensue. One of the 



A MINISTER OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 209 



great blessings of a full and free toleration is this — that we 
may now all of us contend fully and freely for the truth and 
the whole truth. As a lover of truth, then, I am a friend 
to toleration. When the law assumed that all men were 
Churchmen, and on that account compelled all men to attend 
the service of the Church, the charitably disposed would, of 
course, be ready to sacrifice many portions of truth to satisfy 
the scruples of weaker brethren. Noiv we are required to 
make no such sacrifices; we may now keep our eyes steadily 
fixed upon the truth, and if any man think that the truth is 
not with us, he suffers no hardship in withdrawing from us. 
And as a lover of peace as well as of truth I thus openly, 
fairly, and honourably avow my principles. Depend upon it 
we promote peace, not by falsifying facts and telling men 
that we do agree, when we diO not agree, for this only leads 
to endless disputes, but by stating clearly and firmly what 
our differences are, and by then agreeing to differ thereon. 
Those persons v/ho thrust themselves into a promiscuous 
throng are liable to inconveniences and quarrels ; but draw a 
line firmly and decidedly between disagreeing parties, and 
then over that line of demarkation oppositie parties may cor- 
dially shake hands. \Yith Dissenters, therefore, in religious 
matters, I may not act, but most readily will I number them 
among my private friends. Never in my almsgiving will I 
make any distinction of persons — in such cases Samaritan 
and Jew shall be both alike to me ; most willingly will I 
meet them on neutral ground. I icill say to them, and I will 
not take often ce if they retort the saying upon me, that I 
think them in error ; but every person who happens to op- 
pose what we hold as the truth, is not, of necessity, a wilful 
opposer of truth, as such. Their love of truth may be as 
great as ours. Our principle^ therefore, will be the same, 
though the application of that principle may be different, and 
for our common principle we may love and I'^spect while we 
18* 



210 THE COURSE OF PASTORAL DUTY, &c. 

may sometimes oppose each other. We must, indeed, all 
of us learn to forbear one another, and to forgive one ano- 
ther, even as Christy our blessed Redeemer, who died for 
our sins and rose again for our justification, hath forgiven 
us. 

It only remains for me further to observe that of all means 
of usefulness, none is so likely to bring with it a permanent 
blessing as those which we adopt for the bringing up of 
youth in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. On this 
point, I shall reserve what I have to say for the evening, 
only now expressing my satisfaction that the first request I 
shall make to you — and I hope, my brethren, you will not 
refuse a first request — is in behalf of the Parochial Sunday 
Schools, for which a collection is about to be made. 

And now, my brethren — (may 1 not be permitted to say 
my friends?) — I commend you to the mercies of God, the 
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Some few weeks must 
elapse before I can take up my residence finally among you 
— but when I do come, I hope it will be to minister among 
a united people, — so far as the Church is concerned, and 
notwithstanding any minor points of difference, for which no 
man can be more willing than I am to make every charitable 
allowance — and if I have grace and strength to act on the 
principles I have now asserted, and to enforce the doctrines 
to which I have now alluded, I feel sure that the result will 
be, by the blessing of the great Head of the Church, our 
glorified Redeemer, to one and all, — triumphant faith, ex- 
pansive charity, and increased holiness of life. 



SERMON X. 

€f)e tllork of (Solr for, in, anb t\)itlj tljc (£l)uufj. 



A FAREWELL SERMON. 



Nevertheless if thou warn the wicked of his way to turn from it; if he 
do not turn from his way he shall die in his iniquity ; but thou hast 
delivered thy souL — Ezekiel xxxiii. 9. 

There are certain periods in every man's life when he is, 
as it were, compelled by circumstances, to look back upon 
the past, and by doing so to reflect on all that he has done 
that he ought not to have done,— on the many, the count- 
less things which he has omitted to do of those things which 
he ought to have done. It is, indeed, when we are taking 
this retrospect, that we are more than ever impressed with 
our need of a Mediator at the throne of grace, of an inter- 
cessor between ourselves and offended justice; it is then, 
indeed, that we feel the blessing of living not under the law 
but under the gospel. Yea, in that retrospect we find, and 
a humihating discovery it is, that of man as well as of God 
we need forgiveness ; and while we throw oiarselves on God's 
mercy in Christ, must commend ourselves to the charitable 
allowance of our brethren, who are bound to us by the ties 
of a common nature and a common Saviour. 

It is in these melancholy moments, when conscious of 
his many infirmities, weary in spirit, and heavy laden, and 
conscience-stricken, a poor weak faUible mortal is retiring 
from a place of responsibility and trust, and is feelingly alive 
to the account of his conduct which he will one day have to 



212 



THE WORK OF GOD FOR, IN, 



give, — it is in these moments that he refers for comfort to 
that blessed Book which was indited by the everlasting Com- 
forter to be a source of consolation not less than of instruc- 
tion. And there the retiring pastor, in the words of our 
text and other such like passages, may find wherewithal to 
refresh his soul, while he may, in some measure, shift a part 
of his responsibility from himself to those among whom he 
has laboured. 

Thus much, whatever may have been my infirmities and 
my other omissions, in looking back upon my past ministry 
in this parish I may truly say, — I have laboured diligently, 
on the one hand, to warn the wicked of his way to turn 
from it, while 1 have exhorted others, whether they have 
turned from wicked ways in which they may at one time 
have walked, or whether by God's mercy they have been 
ke^t from those evil ways, — to go on unto perfection: I 
have endeavoured to convert sinners and to establish believ- 
ers, to lay before you both the terrors and the mercies of 
God, your privileges and your duties, showing that without 
holiness no man can see the Lord,— = without that holiness 
which no man can attain unto unless God work for him, and 
in him, and ivith him. 

For him, in him with him, — remember, brethren, that 
these have been the constant subjects of my exhortation — 
and it is by calling your attention to these three important 
topics at the present time, that I shall remind you of the 
past, and, by God's blessing, instigate you to future exertion. 

I. God must work for man. Something must be done by 
God for us, before He who is of purer eyes than to behold 
iniquity can look with complacency upon such creatures as 
we are. This is the very basis on which the gospel is built, 
and 1 this day call you to witness that it has ever been the 
basis of my teaching. I have ever laboured to pull down 
your high looks and proud thoughts by reminding you of the 



AND WITH THE CHURCH, 



213 



fallen, lost, abject, condition of our nature, which is such 
that it is utterly impossible that we should turn and prepare 
ourselves by our own natural strength and good works to 
faith, and calling upon God — by reminding you of the danger 
which, in consequence, impends over our race, the vengeance 
which by nature is suspended over our heads. All men are 
sinners, they come into the world with bodies sure to die, 
and with souls sure to sin : the actual innocence of the babe 
is soon corrupted, the natural man grows in sin as he 
grows in years, and when he has lived threescore years 
and ten, how different is he from what he was when he 
first came into the world! What has he gained but a 
knowledge of evil? If, indeed, in some things lie have 
lived according to the law written in his heart, yet in far 
more, having made no approach to a conquest over his 
evil nature, but going down to the grave with accumulated, 
unexpiated, and inexpiable sin, why should he expect to 
awake in the next world a better or a purer being ? He will 
enter the next world in worse condition than he entered 
into this — he will go on sinning and sinning; and, as misery 
is the consequence of sin, his everlasting misery will be 
everlastingly on the increase. Such is man by nature. 
But even while we were yet sinners God so loved us, that 
He sent his only-begotten Son into the world, that all who 
believe in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. 
His only-begotten Son, the brightness of the divine glory, 
the express image of His person, who upholdeth all things 
by the word of His power, who knew no sin, who was with 
God and was God, even He, (sent by the Father) became a 
sin-offering for us, that we might be the righteousness of 
God in Him. He hath wrought /or us, if only we will avail 
ourselves of what He has done, by retaining through faith 
that divine life which has been imparted through those 
sacraments, which are the appointed channels for conveying 



214 



THE WORK OF GOD FOR, IN, 



the waters of life to individual souls from the universal ocean 
of grace. 

What more for man could have been done than that which 
has been done ! And on those merits J have exhorted you 
to rely, from first to last, by faith. By faith, I have called 
upon you to place your little ones in the everlasting arms of 
Christ,, through the sacrament of baptism; that thus they 
might become the children of God, partakers of the eternal 
righteousness of Christ, being baptized into His death, and 
thus made partakers of His holiness. By faith, I have ex- 
horted you to cling to Christ in prayer, and to seek Him 
through every ordinance of the Church, especially that most 
blessed of all ordinances, the sacrament of His Body and 
Blood. I have exhorted you to seek for spiritual and ever- 
lasting life by faith, since without faith you cannot come to 
Christ, and except the name of Christ there is none other 
power whereby you can be saved. 

II. But though the just will live not by his own righteous- 
ness, but by his faith, yet without inward righteousness faith 
itself can never save. On the one hand, works without faith 
(because it is mere vanity to call man's works good) will not 
save ; but, on the other, faith without works is dead. The 
very hest of men must say, " Not unto me, O Lord, not unto 
me, but unto Thy name give the glory;" therefore, a fortiori, 
a wicked man can have no chance of salvation though he may 
say. Lord, Lord. As the Apostle argues,^ "If the righteous 
scarcely he savecV^ — if such a mighty sacrifice as that of the 
cross was necessary to render even Ms salvation possible — 
"•vjhere shall the ungodly and sinner ajppear?^^ Interndl 
righteousness, therefore, is necessary as well as external ; 
sanctification equally with justification. We are not only to 
be accounted righteous, but actually to become so ; the old 
order of things, in short, is to be reversed; — as the natural 

a i Pet. iv. 18, 



AND WITH THE CHURCH. 



215 



man grows worse and worse, so the spiritual man is to grow 
better; — his path must be as the "shining Hght, that shineth 
more and more unto the perfect day;" and, instead of differ- 
ing so widely in his age from the babe, as is the case with 
the natural man, he, in his perfection, will have to come 
back to childish dispositions, and be as humble, as meek, as 
confiding, as believing, as gentle, as teachable, as lovely in 
his soul. But how shall a man bring a clean thing out of an 
unclean ? There is no remedial principle within us by 
nature. Even when we hnow what is right, there is still a 
law in our members which is ever bringing us into captivity 
to the law of sin. Now who can deliver us from the body of 
this death — from this bondage of corruption? How, I ask 
again, can we bring a clean thing out of an unclean ? With 
man this is impossible. So impossible that he must be born 
from above. ^''Except a 7nan he horn again^^^ or he horn 
from ahove^ "As cannot enter into the kingdom of God ; or, as 
our Lord afterwards explains it, Except a man he horn of 
water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of 
God.^'' " That which is horn of the flesh is flesh, and that 
■which is horn of the Spirit is Spirit.''^^ And, on this account, 
as the second Person of the Holy Trinity was sent by the 
Father to be a propitiation for the sins of the whole wwld, 
that God might be just and yet the justifier of them that be- 
lieve in Jesus — even so the third Person of the blessed 
Trinity is sent by the Father and the Son, an abiding minis- 
ter in the Church, to create anew all those who are brought 
to Him in the sacrament of baptism, the laver of regenera- 
tion. By the Holy Spirit thus operating in us, we are 
washed, we are sanctified, we are justified — as many as have 
been baptized into Christ have put on Christ — we become 
partakers of His Spirit, that is, the Holy Ghost, by one 
Spirit we are baptized into one Body. Li us by Him at that 

U Cor. vi. 11; Gal iii. 27. 



216 



THE WORK OF GOD FOR, IN, 



time a remedial principle of life is implanted, so that we may 
hj duly cultivating that principle rescue ourselves from the 
dominion and crucify the whole body of sin — so that we 
raay make our calling and election sure, — so that we who 
are baptized may do what by nature we could not do, work 
out our salvation. 

While no unbelieving fears of the consequence of this 
evangelical doctrine have prevented me from laying it before 
you, — ^while I have stated to you your privileges, and there- 
upon invoked you to bless the God and Father of our Lord 
Jesus Christ, who hath blessed you with such spiritual bless- 
ings, who hath chosen you to these exalted privileges before 
the foundation of the world, who hath thus predestinated 
you unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ, — I have 
warned you diat great privileges involve duties correspond- 
ently great, for the neglect of which the most awful punish- 
ment is denounced. Where much has been given, there we 
know much will be required, — if the servant who knew not 
his Lord's will and did it not, will (though with few stripes) 
still be beaten, many will be the stripes inflicted on that servant 
who, knowing his Lord's will, wilfully neglects to perform 
it. If, then, I have spoken to you of the blessing conferred 
upon you in baptism, in having a vital principle implanted, 
by which you have been enabled to live holy lives, to do 
what is well-pleasing in the sight of God, and to grow up in 
good works to eternal life, — I have also warned you of the 
impossibility of escape if you neglect so great salvation, I 
have exhorted you to use your privileges so as to grow in 
grace, — I have preached to you of the necessity of conver- 
sion, that is, a gradual conformation of the whole mind to 
God. Indeed, we may thus distinguish between regenera- 
tion and conversion, when we are addressing baptized per- 
sons,^ ill whom conversion follows upon, instead of preced- 

^ The conversion of a heathen and the conversion of a baptized per- 
son are obviously tv^'o very different things — in the latter case conver- 



AND WITH THE CHURCH. 



217 



ing regeneration : regeneration, as the birth of God and our 
engrafting into Christ, is the source of every spiritual power 
and grace ; conversion is our exercise of these powers : in 
regeneration is given the power to turn; conversion is an 
actual turning; in regeneration God comes to us; in con- 
version men come to Him who had before come to them : in 
regeneration God supplies the sap to every branch of his 
vine ; gradual conversion is the gi'owth, santification and 
renovation the fruit. 

Thus have I warned the wicked who has despised the 
riches of God's goodness and forbearance and long-suffering 
who hath not let the goodness of God lead him to repentance, 
that he is only treasuring up unto himself " wrath against 
the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of 
God, who will render to every man according to his deeds — 
to them who by patient continuance in well-doing seek for 
glory, and honour, and immortality, eternal life ; but to them 
that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, indignation 
and wrath, tribulation and anguish." 

III. If you desire to continue in well-doing, I have told 
you for your comfort that the " God, who spared not His 
own Son, but gave Him up for us all," will work icith you. 
The Holy Ghost will be your helper — He is promised to 
^''Jieljj our infirmities,^^ to " stablisli us in Christ,^^ to " seal u^ 
with ivisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and re- 
demjHion.''^ 

sion is the exercise of the power of regeneration, in the former it pre- 
cedes it. Thus in the ministration of baptism to such as are of riper 
years, the Church of England requires conversion as a qualification for 
regeneration — the persons to be baptised are required truly to repent 
and to come unto God by faith, and moreover, they renounce the de^^l 
and his works : if they are not thus converted they receive the sacra- 
ment unworthily. But after baptism conversion is still to go on, and 
the result of this use of regenerating grace, is gradual renovation. 
19 



218 



THE WORK OF GOD FOR, IN, 



But alas ? the heart is always deceitful, and therefore, to 
guard against self-deception. I have considered, with minute 
detail, what are evil works and what are good works, preach- 
ing to your consdences rather than your/ce^/"/^^-.s, and consid- 
ering the commandments one by one. 

If I have announced to the fool, who says in his heart, 
there is no God, the first commandment which was delivered 
amid the thunderings of Sinai, I have also reminded the 
true-hearted Christian that, besides the God whom the 
Church adores, there is none other. — that the true, the only 
God. is a mysterious Being, almighty, eternal, inrinire. omni- 
present, omniscient, unchangeable, invisible, unsearchable, 
unequalled, who is holiness, justice, goodness, wisdom, 
mercy, truth, love : who exists one God in Trinity, and 
Trinity in Unity. I have occasionally dwelt on his attri- 
butes, moral and potential, that we might approach him 
together, with those overwhelming feelings with which the 
creature ought to approach the Creator, with that compound 
of emotion, astonishment and pleasure, which we CaiJ id. we i-^— 
not daring to liken Him to any thing on earth, not daring to 
make Him familiar, as a visible thing, to the eye. or even to 
adopt towards Him familiar and irreverent terms of address, 
but drawing near to Him with humble reverence, according 
to the decent rites and ceremonies we have derived from our 
fathers, and theyfrom theirs, up to the times of the Apostles, 
and in those expressions of the Liturgy, vvdiich have come 
down to us from the same source. — and which, while they 
embody our Prayers, still clothe them wirh that language 
with which it behoves us to approach Him who. if He is 
our Father, is srill King of kings and Lord of lords. — ^AVhile 
I have thus led the righteous to honour His name and His 
word, and His sanctuary and His ministers, and all that are 
called by His name. I have warned the careless and profane 
by that very fact, of the awful nature of their crime, in pro- 



AND WITH THE CHURCH. 



219 



faning that holy Name, — in cursiDg, swearing, and blas- 
pheming, and thus tracing their sin to its source, and proving 
it to arise — (though they would deny the truth of the 

charge) — from an evil heart of unbelief? It is indeed to an 
evil heart of unbelief that we may trace the sin of those who 
transgress the fourth commandment, not less than that of 
those Avho offend against the third. Is there a Sabbath- 
breaker here present ? He knows, that if I have found 
access to him more difficult, I have indirectly endeavoured 
to warn him of his sin— while my fellow-worshippers I have 
exhorted to reverence not only the Lord's Day, but all the 
Festivals which have come down to us from our fathers, and 
which are established by the same authority, that of the 
Church Catholic, which changed the Sabbath from the last 
day of the week to the first. "While I have laboured dili- 
gently to teach the children committed to my care to love 
their parents, I have shown to the parents themselves the 
duty of submission to authority, — to the king, in temporal 
matters, and those that are put in authority under him, — to 
the bishop, in spiritual matters, with the priests and deacons: 
I have, indeed, entered into some detail on the relative duties 
of parent and child, of master and servant, of magistrate and 
subject; wives I have exhorted to submit themselves to their 
own husbands, as is fit in the Lord ; husbands I have warned 
to love their wives, even as Christ loved the Church, and 
gave Himself for it. Against the first incursion of those 
malignant passions, which, if indulged in, except for the 
restraints of the law, would lead to murder, — against not 
merely theft, but all kinds of dishonesty, you have often 
heard me preach ; nor has any false delicacy prevented me 
from warning the young against those sensualities, which, if 
encouraged, lead to the infraction of the seventh command- 
ment. Against the too prevalent vice of evil speaking, lying, 
and slandering, against idle talebearing and gossiping, and 



220 



THE WORK OF GOD FOR, IN, 



jesting which is not convenient, I have ever raised my voice; 
and I have fearlessly denounced those envious passions, those 
base, uncharitable, covetous tempers, to which the popular 
press of the day delights to pander. But if I have warned 
the poor not to covet, I have also warned the rich that their 
treasures are not their own, — that in their baptism their 
wealth was dedicated to God and His service, — that they are 
only the stewards, the almoners of a common Father's 
bounty, — that for their mode of expending their riches they 
will have, one day, to give account — that they are not only 
to have pity on the Lazarus at their gates, but to look out 
for objects to relieve. In a word, I have endeavoured to 
excite you all, whatever ye may have to do, whether ye eat, 
or whether ye drink, in public life, and in private life, rich 
and poor, highland low, in the domestic circle, the counting- 
house, the shop, the street, the cottage, the parlour, to do 
all to the glory of God, remembering always that the end of 
the commandment is charity out of a pure heart, and a good 
conscience and faith unfeigned.*^ 

Thus have I ever endeavoured to show how privileges 
invoke duties, while duties performed lead to higher privi- 
leges : how doctrine leads to practice, and practice to a more 
perfect knowledge of doctrine. Such is the system of the 
Church. The Church is established by Christ for both pur- 
poses — to convey grace and to enforce doctrine. As the 
Father sent Christ, so did Christ send his Apostles, and they 
the Bishops, who have come down in regular succession to 
our own times, they again sending, in Christ's name, the 
Priests and Deacons throughout the land, and all acting by 
Christ's commission thus originally given, as the ministers 
and stewards of the mysteries of God, with whose minis- 
tration Christ has promised to be spiritually present* To 



d 1 Tim. i. a. 



AND WITH THE CHURCH. 



221 



the Church thus instituted by Christ, — thus handed down to 
us by the succession of our Bishops,— to this, the fellowship 
of the Apostles, in which the pure word of God is taught, 
and the sacraments duly administered, by those who can 
prove their right to administer the same, — I have ever exhort- 
ed you, and I exhort you note to adhere in humility, loyalty, 
and love. Be not wise in your own conceits. Be willing 
to suppose that what you find established is more likely to be 
right than your own crude conjectures, even though you 
may not at once see the wisdom of it. Meddle not with them 
that are o-iven to change. For religion is not as science. — 
something that admits of discovery — it is something once, 
and once for all, delivered to the saints, which is to be p-e- 
served, not discovered, — so that the probability always is, 
that what is most ancient is, in this respect, most true, — new 
lights we cannot have, our business is to take care that the 
old lights burn not dim. that the fire which came down from 
heaven, and is burning on the altar, go not out. " Thus 
saitJi the Lord, stand ye in the ways and see. and ask for idie 
OLD paths, where is the good icay., and wcdJc therein^ and ye 
shall find rest unto your souls."'' 

Abide in the Church, and there ye will find that spiritual 
food which will make gkd your hearts, which will fill you with 
grace and spiritual benediction, even the Body of Christ, and 
the Blood of Christ, which are mysteriously but verily and 
indeed conveyed to the faithful in the Lord's Supper, where- 
by we are united with Christ, and Christ with us, and one 
with another. A'es, my brethren, you who are coiumuni- 
cants, there is between us a mystical union, which, how- 
ever separated we may be in the body, will often bring us in 
spirit to each other, and that spiritual communion will be 
only preparatory to the everlasting re-union in heaven, which 
those will for ever enjoy who shall die in the Lord. 

«Jer. vi. 16. 

19* 



222 THE WORK OF GOD FOR, IX. 

And now I have finished my ministry in this parish. My 
brethren — my friends — for you are my friends, and, thanks 
be to God, I know not an enemy in the parish; — my friends 
— ^for you have proved your friendship not in words only, 
but in deeds : my friends, who have made so much allowance 
for my many deficiencies, who have received so very kindly 
the little good of which God in his mercy has used me as 
the instrument: My young friends, whom I have trained in 
the way of truth; teachers of the Sunday Schools, — mem- 
bers of the vestry, (may you always continue to be as united 
a body as you have been during the last nine years:)— you 
who have assisted me in visiting the sick and needy: — you 
with whom in your sorrows I have wept, and who in my 
sorrows have wept with me,— you, whom I have been the 
means of reconcinng after disagreements, — (would to God. 
that this day, if any man has a quarrel against any, he would 
hold out the hand of reconciliation and forgiveness:) — you. 
who have so liberally supported every institution for which 
I have made to you an appeal: — ^my poorer brethren, whom 
I have ever held in honour; — my elderly friends with whom 
I have taken sweet counsel; — my Christian friends, whose 
sacrifice of prayer and praise it has been my pleasant duty 
to offer to the throne of grace, whom, through my ministry 
Christ has fed with the bread of life; — friends, one and all: 
mx prayer for you i^.—may God deal Tcindly icWl you, as ye 
have dealt kindly icitli me and niine — my exhortation is, those 
tilings which ye have learned, and received, and heard of me. 
do — and the God of peace shall he with you.- — for you have 
heard of me not my own conjectures, but the words of truth, 
as the Church has received them. 

And is there here any one who, when I have warned him 
of his wicked ways, has given no heed to the warning — now, 
wiien you hear my voice, perhaps for the last time, I implore 
you to think of the warnings you have had — reflect, think. 



AND WITH THE CHURCH. 



223 



where our next meeting may be. In all probability it will 
be before the judgment seat of Christ, where, (while I sue 
for pardon for my own manifold offences,) I shall have to 
proclaim w^hat your privileges were, — you to account for the 
neglect of them. But I w^ill not suppose that any such 
person i ^now present, — or, if there be, God of His infinite 
mercy grant that this day, this hour, this moment, He may 
turn liim^ that he may he turned! — I w411 rather express my 
satisfaction that I shall leave you, both the commencing and 
the advanced Christian, to the ministry of one who acts 
under the same commission as myself, with whom Christ 
will be equally present, and who brings to his Saviour's work 
in this parish, a long experience, a sound discretion, and a 
kind heart. 

These are the last words of one who speaks to you, my 
brethren, in much gratitude and love. Unto GocVs gracious 
mercy and protection I commit you. The Lord hless you and 
keep you. The Lord make His face to shine upon you, and 
he gracious unto you. The Lord lift up the light of His 
countenance upon you. and give you peace hotk now and ever- 
more. 



SERMON XI. 

ilTutual lovbtaxanu Ummmmltb 

IN THINGS INDIFFERENT. 

One man esteemeth one day above another, another esteemeth every 
day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind. 

" He that regardeth the day, regardeth it unto the Lord, and he that 
regardeth not the day, to the Lord he doth not regard it. He that 
eateth; eateth unto the Lord, for he giveth God thanks; and he that 
eateth not, to the Lord he eateth not; and giveth God thanks." — - 
Ro^iANs, XIV. 5, 6, 

We are assembled this da^^ to assist in the consecration 
of a building which has been dedicated to the service of Al- 
mighty God by one of the most devoted of His servants, 
grateful for the privileges of his election in Christ Jesus; and 
the chief pastor of the diocese hath come in God's name to 
accept the offering, and to leave the divine blessing behind, — - 
a blessing which will, I trust, especially rest upon him who, 
by founding this church, has given proof of his love towards 
the Saviour who died to save him, and of his zeal for the 
glory of his God. May he be blessed in his going out, and 
his coming in, and whatsoever he putteth his hand unto. 

And remembering that Mary, when it was not in her 
power to do much to evince her devotion towards her divine 
Master, yet anointed His feet with ointment and wiped 
them with her hair, other members of the founder's family, 
each according to his or her ability, have made offerings 
for the adornment of this sanctuaiy. There has indeed 
been no utilitarian Judas here, w^ho, dwelling in a lord ly 



226 MUTUAL FORBEARAN'CE RECOMMENDED 



palace, has begrudged the expenditure encountered for the 
honour of God: but on the contrary, every thing has been 
done to render the place meet for the performance of our 
ritual in an orderly and decent manner. 

And it is because in these days the question has been 
started. = — what is orderly and decent, that for this occasion I 
have selected the words of my text as the subject for my 
discourse. We have here a golden rule for our guidance in 
things iuditrereut. Among the early Christians, converts 
from the Jews and Gentiles, some there were of the former 
class, who thought it to be incumbent upon them to observe 
the Jewish customs. This, of course, they did not do. as if 
they were a means of justirication. for then they would have 
been rebuked at once for impugning that great doctrine which 
lies at the root of Christianity. — ^justification by faith ; but 
they acted thus for edification, or for self-discipline, or from 
a reverential feeling of attachment to forms and ceremonies 
formerly ordained by their God and long observed by their 
ancestors. But this observance of the ancient customs 
was condemned by many as an encroachment upon the 
liberty wher eh 1/ Christ had made them free.^ The one party 
blamed the other for superstition, and this again was blamed 
for laxity of conduct and irreverence. Both parties were 
admonished in the spirit of love by the Apostle; '"Him that 
is weak in faith receive ye. but not to doubtful disputations, 
for one believeth that he may eat all things : another who is 
weak, eateth herbs. Let not him that eateth despise him 
that eateth not: and let not him that eateth not judge him 
that eateth : for God hath received him. "Who art thou that 
judgest another man's servant? to his own master he stand- 
eth or falleth. Yea he shall be holden up : for God is able 
to make him stand. One man esteemeth one day above 
another: another esteemeth every day alike. Let eveiy 
a Gal. V. 1. 



LN THINGS INDIFFERENT. 



227 



man be fully persuaded in his own mind. He that regardeth 
the day regardeth it unto the Lord, and he that regardeth 
not the day, to the Lord he doth not regard it. He that 
eateth, eateth unto the Lord, for he giveth God thanks, and 
he that eateth not, to the Lord he eateth not, and giveth God 
thanks." 

The things alluded to in this passage, not having been or- 
dained in the Christian Church, were to Christians things 
indifferent; it was a thing indifferent w^hether men did, or 
did not, observe the Jewish regulations as to food ; whether 
they did, or did not, keep the Sabbath and other days held 
sacred by the Jews ; these were open questions, with respect 
to which, men, animated by the same motive, love to God, 
arrived at conclusions most different. And with either party 
the Apostle pleads for mutual toleration and forbearance. 

In our own Church we can produce an analogous case. 
There are in our calendar what are styled red letter days and 
black letter days: the first are festivals, noted by being 
printed in red, for which a service is appointed, and the 
observance of which (since the observance is enjoined by 
competent authority,) is no longer to us, w^ho are members 
of the Church, a thing indifferent : the black letter days, on 
the contrary, are festivals for which no service has been 
appointed in our Church since the Reformation, but which, 
being retained in the calendar, some of our brethren still 
observe in private, and even feel an obligation so to do. Now, 
in this case the very words of the Apostle are apphcable : 
"One man esteemethone day above another, another esteem- 
eth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in 
his own mind." It is an open question, let each man act 
according to his persuasion of what is expedient to be done. 

With respect to all forms and ceremonies and external 
observances, we may lay down two rules which will be un- 
derstood by ah who are capable of reflection; namely, first, 



2-28 MUTUAL FORBEARANCE RECOMMENDED 



that forms and ceremonies, and external observances are in 
themselves things indifferent ; and secondly, that when they 
are appointed by competent authority in the Chm'ch, they 
cease to be any longer indiiTerent, bnt upon the members of 
the Church they become obUgatory. "If any minister shall 
omit to use the form of prayer, or any of the orders and 
ceremonies prescribed in the communion book, let him be 
suspended : and if after a month he do not reform and submit 
himself let him be excommunicated ; and then if he will not 
submit himself, v^'ithin the space of another month, let him 
be deposed from the ministry/*^ 

The argument of the Apostle, therefore, is not applicable 
to the observance of the Lord's day, or of the other fasts and 
festivals, the observance of which is ordained by the Church; 
it is only apj^dicable to those fasts and festivals, or other ob- 
servances Vv-hich, not being expressly enjoined, individuals, 
out of piety, impose upon themselves. And it would be well 
indeed, if on all such subjects, each side would regard the 
other side, as consisting of weaker brethren : only let it be 
the regard not of contempt but of charity, which will termi- 
nate not in recrimination but in mutual forbearance. 

We perceive, then, with respect to the forms, ceremonies, 
and outward observances of the Church, wherein we are 
bound, and wherein we are at liberty: where the directions 
of the Church are plain and unequivocal, the honest man and 
true Christian will not question, but obey: where there is a 
doubt as to the intention of the Church, each man must ex- 
ercise his own judgment: lei him he fully iJersiiadecl in his 
own mind, and the liberty which he claims for himself let 
him extend to others. 

There must be some scope within certain limits, for the 
exercise of the private judgment, since it is impossible for 

"•^ Constitutions and Canons Ecclesiastical of the Church of England. 
Canon 38. 



IN THLNGS INDIFFERENT. 



229 



any directions to be so definite and minute as to render a 
difference of opinion impossible. Two persons may be sin- 
cerely desirous and dutifully prepared to obey the direc- 
tions of the Church, and yet from the circumstance just 
alluded to they may be found to vary in their mode of carry- 
ing their intentions into eftect. For example, two clergy- 
men may intend to observe the rubric which directs the 
priest humbly to present the alms and other devotions of the 
people collected at the Eucharist upon the holy table, and 
yet the question may arise as to the mode in vdiich this act 
of humility is to be performed, one thinking it necessary, 
and the other not, to present the alms on his bended knee. 
So again two clergymen ma}" wish to obey the Church as to 
the position of the priest at the time of consecrating the sa- 
cred elements, but the one may interpret the rubric as 
directing him to stand in the front of the altar, and the other 
may suppose that the intention of the Church is that he 
shall stand at the north side. These are minor points, 
things in themselves indifi:erent, but they are adduced to 
illustrate my meaning when I say that something must be 
left to the private judgment ; and for that judgment there- 
fore a guide is necessary. 

In seeking for guidance, some persons will reason thus : I 
must strictly adhere to what the Church ordains, but where 
the letter of the Prayer Book is not quite clear, or where 
certain observances have fallen into disuse, I am guided in 
my interpretation of what the Church intends, by the cus- 
tom which I found to prevail at the time of my ordination, a 
custom which received the sanction of my diocesan. When 
a man so argues, all we can say is, let every man he fully 
^persuaded i?i liis oicii mind: only, such a person, on his own 
principle, must be prepared to obey his diocesan when that 
diocesan absolutely withdraws the sanction which it was 



20 



230 MUTUAL FORBEARANCE RECOMMENDED 



presumed that he tacitly gave, and thinks proper to insist on 
a closer observance of the letter of the law. 

But there are others who, conceding the point that, in 
the mode of observing the regulations of the Church, some- 
thing must be left to the private judgment, and that an exact 
uniformity in all details cannot be expected and is not to be 
desired, refuse, nevertheless, to take for an authority the 
practice of the preceding generation, — who lived in an age 
of laxity and indevotion. They contend that to ascertain the 
mind of the Church of England, we must enquire into the 
customs that prevailed when our offices were reformed and 
reduced to their present shape. They would direct their 
enquiry not to the customs of the last age, but to the age 
which preceded the reformation ; for, the reason why some 
of our rubrical directions are less clear than they might be, 
is, that they who translated and re-arranged our offices, pre- 
sumed that the clergy of our Church would continue to act, 
after the reformation, as they had done before, except where 
special directions were given ; just as the canons received in 
our Church, before the reformation of it, are still binding, 
except where they contravene canons and statutes subse- 
quently ordained. As an instance of what I mean I may 
refer to the alternate mode of chanting and of saying the 
Psalms, for which no directions are given in our Prayer 
Book, for none were needed; the reformers of our ritual 
knew that the clergy would, as a matter of course, act in 
this respect as they had been accustomed to do before the 
reformation commenced.^ 

^ In the Act for extinguishing the authority of the Bishop of Rome, 
the following passage occurs : 

" Provided always, and be it enacted, That neither this Act nor any 
thing or things in the same repeated, mentioned, or composed be in 
any wise prejudicial, hurtful, or degrading to the ceremonies, uses, and 
other laudable and politic ordinances, for a tranquillity, discipline, con- 



IiN THINGS INDIFFERENT. 



231 



Here again, with respect to this mode of proceeding, we 
may say, Let every man he fully persuaded in his own mind. 
It is not indeed to be denied that these different ways of 
interpreting the ritual when the rubrics are doubtful, must, 
among other things, prove the existence of two different 
schools in our Church, nor is it to be denied that these dif- 
ferent schools must continue, until what is now indefinite is 
made definite by the only authority which can effect this, 
namely, a convocation \^ yet there seems no reason why on 
this account, these two schools should regard each other 
with bitter and hostile feelings ; there seems to be no reason 

**cord, devotion, piety, and decent order heretofore (i. e. before the 
Reformation) in the Church of England used, instituted, taken, and 
" accepted, nor to any person or persons accordingly using the same or 
" any of them." * 

^ The government of the Church has always been m.onarchical, but it 
has never been a despotism. The Church is not governed by Bishops 
alone, but by Bishops acting with the advice of the Presbyters and the 
consent of the laity. The inspired Apostles themselves consulted the 
Elders, Acts xv. 6. That there should be discontent, therefore, among 
the Clergy when they find their Bishops endeavouring to govern the 
Church, not by the advice of the Presbyters, but by the authority of 
Parliament, is a thing not to be wondered at. Hence the desire evinced 
in so many quarters to have a convocation summoned for the despatch 
of business. But many will demur to a petition for this purpose ad- 
dressed to the houses of parliament. Convocation is not dependent upon 
parliament, but has an authority of its own, and all that is required is 
the consent of the Sovereign, to whom the petitions should be addressed. 
The friends of the reformation should remember the indignation with 
which Queen Ehzabeth resented the interference of parliament in matters 
of religion. These things were to be settled by herself and the convoca- 
tion of the Clergy. And no true churchman will consent, though he 
may be compelled to yield, to the authority of a parliament, in the 
affairs of religion, composed, as our parliaments now are, of men pro- 
fessing any rehgion, or no religion, and many members of which are 
the avowed enemies of the Church. 



232 MUTUAL FORBEARANCE RECOMMENDED 



why they should not act towards each other according to 
the golden rule of charity laid down in our text. 

But it is a notorious fact that the most angry and bitter 
feelings are excited against those who act on the principle to 
which I have alluded last; and these angry feelings, upon 
examination, are excited, because the result of acting upon 
this principle has been found to be, that it makes the appear- 
ance of our sanctuaries and the ceremonies of our service, 
approximate much more nearly to what we see in Catholic 
churches on the Continent, than to wdiat we witness in places 
of worship pertaining to Pratestant Dissenters at home, 
And the fear is entertained, that by such a proceeding, there- 
fore, men may be led to Romanism. It is indeed obvious to 
reply that the contrary course has a tendency to lead men to 
Protestant Dissent, since a well-regulated mind would prefer 
no ceremonies to ceremonies rendered unmeaning by a care- 
less observance of them. And it is still an open question in 
our Church, which is most to be deprecated, Protestant Dis- 
sent or Romish Dissent. 

Nevertheless, as the primitive Christians watched with 
jealousy whatever had a tendency to lead men back to Juda- 
ism, so w^ill the tme-hearted member of the Church of Eng- 
land regard with more than jealousy any thing which has, in 
his opinion, a tendency to bring back our Church into that 
slavery to the Pope, and those abominations of Romanism, 
from which, by the wisdom of our Reformers and the strug- 
gles of three centuries, she has been so happily rescued.® I 

^ It is indeed much to be lamented that there are persons in connex- 
ion with the Church of England, who value too lightly the great move- 
ment in our Church, known as the Reformation, which took place three 
centuries ago. It is true that the Reformation is merely an event in 
our history, and as the Bishop of St. David's with consistent charity, 
remarks, every man is free to form and express his own opinion on the 
advantages and disadvantages which have resulted from that great 



IN THINGS INDIFFERENT. 



233 



speak strongly on this point as I ever have done and ever 
will do, for be the doctrines of the Church of Rome miti- 
gated or evaded to any extent by those of her divines, who 
are breathing the purer atmosphere of England, and are 
brought into proximity to the English Church, which is the 
purest branch of the Church Catholic now in existence: still, 
by the sanction which the Church of Rome gives to the 

movement. But surely every one who is acquainted with the real, not 
the imaginary, state of the Church of England before the Reformation, 
must see cause to bless God that this Church has been reformed. And 
even if v,-e admit the charges which are brought of a want of reverence 
in the mere establishmentarian. of secularity in our higher ecclesiastics, 
and of ignorance of the Gospel as well as a want of charity in the so- 
called Evangelists, still it ought to be borne in mind that these faults 
exist in the unreformed branches of the Church, and that in every branch 
of the Church these faults will continue to exist, as accidents, until 
human nature becomes very different from what it now is. If in some 
few things the R.omanist may have the advantage over us, yet in most 
things the balance is in our favour. 

Let what is going on in Ireland at the present time open the eyes -of 
men to the real character of Popery. The defenders of R.omanism have 
called upon us to admit that in the Romish Church there is, what we 
have not, unity and discipline, and this point has been too easily con- 
ceded. But where is the unity and discipline now? The Romish 
clergy are preaching up bloodshed and rebellion, and almost every crime; 
and either no attempt has been made by ecclesiastical authority to re- 
strain them, and then the whole R.omish Church is involved in the guilt 
of these wicked priests, or else the boasted discipline of their Church is 
powerless, and their discipline is at an end. 

We might refer even to the much more respectable Romanists of 
England, and enquire whether the tone and temper exhibited at the 
meetings of the so-called ''Catholic Institute,'' are not almiost, if not 
altogether, as contrary to the spirit of true religion as any of the most 
objectionable of the meetings which are held in Exeter Hall. They 
seem indeed to be ready to imitate all that is bad in Protestantism, 
while they reject the good. 
20* 



234 MUTUAL FORBEARANCE RECOMMENDED 



practice of bowing down to graven images, and to the invo- 
cation of saints, but above all to the blasphemous prayers 
with which, in her accredited books of devotion, her mem- 
bers insult the mother of our Lord, the Church of Rome 
is involved in no less a sin than that of idolatry. We 
admit, indeed, that the Church of Rome is still a portion of 
the Lord's temple, but it is like the temple of Jerusalem in 
the time of Manasseh, — the temple in which evil is done in 
the sight of the Lord, like unto the abominations of the hea- 
then, and all the host of heaven is worshipped and served." 

But while thus contending, the question still occurs, on 
what ground is it presumed that a recurrence to the ancient 
ceremonies of the Church will bring men to Romanism. 
The persons who go over from us to Rome, in spite of the 
idolatry of th^ Romish Church, go, as they tell us, from dis- 
gust at our irreverence, our inattention to devotional obser- 
vances, our neglect of those forms and ceremonies, not over 
burdensome, which our clergy are endowed to observe ; and 
they imagine that the Romish Church is, in these respects, 
superior to our own : it is not then on account of our return 
to the ancient usages of the Church of England, but on ac- 
count of our neglect of them, and on account of the polemi- 
cal spirit in which religion is too often made to consist rather 
than in acts of devotion, that those weaker brethren, whose 
lapse all who have a just abhorrence of idolatry must de- 
plore, have departed from the light of the Church of England 
and betaken themselves to the thick darkness of the Church 
of Rome. 

And if this be the case, — if it so be, that our want of at- 
tention to these things of minor importance be a stumbling 
block in a brother's way, we are bound in charity to remove 
it : and in so doing we shall be acting on the very principle 
according to which our Church w^as reformed. It is said 

^ 2 Chron. xxxiii. 2, 3. 



IN THINGS INDIFFERENT. 



235 



that when Queen EUzabeth a.scended the throne, she found 
that at least two-thirds of her subjects, though wihing to 
renounce the supremacy of the pope, were attached to the 
usages of the ancient Church, and would rather become 
Papists than renounce them.° And how did that wise Queen, 
to whom under God, we are indebted not only for securing 
to our Church the blessing of the Reformation, but for sav- 
ing it from the destruction which less wise reformers would 
have brought upon it, — how did she meet the difficulty ? It 
was by doing that very thing which is now complained of as 
likely to send men to Romanism! Her mode of conciliating 
the minds of men hostile to the great spiritual movement of 
the age, and of encouraging other Churches to reform, was, 
by maintaining the grandeur of ceremonial worship at the 
very time that she rejected whatever had a tendency to en- 
courage idolatrous practices. This she did by the autho- 
rity which the Church had confided to her, and under the 
advice of those iljustrioas primates, Parker and AVhitgift. 
She was compelled by circumstances at the commencement 
of her reign to prefer to high places in the Church many 
who had imbibed ultra-protestant prejudices while resident 
in foreign lands, but she, at the same time, prevented them 
from perverting the Catholic Church in this country into a 
mere Protestant sect. 

The liturgy of the Church, according to Dr. Heylyn, was, 
at the commencement of her reign, altered for the express 
purpose of concihating those weaker brethren who regarded 
the Church of Rome with too favourable an eye: "by leaving 
out an offensive passage against the Pope, restoring the old 

s " Divisa autem omnis Anglia in tres partes ex tribus una non erat 
60 tempore hceretica, nec cupiebat aut probabat mutationem relisionis, 
necdum postea, cum sectee pemiciem esset experta." Sandus De Schism. 
Angl. p. 290. The same statement was made by Creighton, a Scottish 
Jesuit in 1586. Sec. Strype. Annals iii. 604. 



236 MUTUAL FORBEARA^'CE RECOMMENDED 



forra of words, accnstoraably used iu the participation of the 
Holy Sacrament: the total expunging of a rubric which 
seemed to make a question of the real presence : the situation 
of the Holy Table in the place of an altar: the reverend 
posture of kneeling at it. or before it. by all communicants, 
the retaining of so many of the ancient festivals, and finally 
by the vestments used by the Priests in their ministrations.*'^ 

^ The whole passage as it occurs in Heylyn is so important to the 
argume::t o:" the text, that it is here transcribed tor the reader : 

Nor were the?e years less fatal to tne Church oi E'riZ'-OJid, by the 
detection of the Papists, who till this time had kept themselves in her 
Communion, and did in general as punctually attend all Divine offices 
in the same, as the va>ar Protestants. And it is probable enough, that 
they ::rrht have held out longer in their due obedience, if frst, the 
scanua" " :.i v.-a? given by i::e o:her facrion. and afterwards the sepa- 
ration which ensued upon it, had not took them off. The Liturgie of 
the Church has been exceedingly well fitted to their approbation, by 
lea^dng out an o5'ensive passaga against the Pope; restoring the old 
form of words accas:on:a":'iy u^ed in the avt: /h-.t:: a ti:e :.:'y Sacra- 
ment: lite tota. exyaagtag "ha rtt^rie. ^^a.::.. -teat-:., t" t:t;.-/.a a t:ae;tion 
of the Ri.i/. presoice : the sitt:at:ta: i.aiy ta'tie in the y^are of the 

altar; the reverend posture of iaateaag at tt. -r oettre ;t. by aii com- 
municants ; the retaining of so ntar.y tite ancient festivals ; and nnahy , 
by the vesrni-nts used by th^ rri'-t or ttttnister in the ministration. 
And so long as aii things cottthoaeh in sa gocd a posture, they saw no 
cause for s^^-;- ai t.thtg from the re-t of their brethren in the att- <:: vroi- 
ship. But when ail decency and order was turaed out el tite Ch.urch, 
by the heat and indiscretion of these new Pi.eformers ; the hoiy-table 
brought into the midst of the Church like a common table; the Commu- 
nicants in some places sitting at it with as iitt.e reverence as any ordi- 
nary table; the ancient fasts and feasts deserted, and Church-vestnaenls 
throvim aside, as the remainders of the superstition of the Church of 
Koine : they then began visibly to decline from their first cornformity, 
and yet they made no general separation, nor defection neither, till the 
Genevan brethren had first made the schisnn and rather chose to meet 
in barns and woods, yea and common fields, than to associate v.-ith their 



IN THINGS INDIFFERENT. 



237 



It was her wise and charitable policy, in this respect, 
which brought down upon her head the fierce wrath of the 
fiery Puritans: Neal, their historian, entirely agrees with 
the statement of the author just quoted, though he alludes to 
the fact with very different feelings, he says, " Her majesty 
was afraid of reforming too far: she ~\vas desirous of retain- 
ing images in Churches, crucifixes and crosses, vocal and 
instrumental music, with the old Popish (he should have said 
Catholic,) garments: it is not therefore to be wondered at, 
that in revising the Liturgy of King Edward, no alteration 
W'Cre made in favour of those icJio now hegan to he called 
Puritans, from attempting a purer form of worship and dis- 
cipline than had yet been established. The queen was more 
concerned for the Papists:"^ that is, according to the admis- 
sion of this historian, she desired to reconcile them to the 
Catholic Church, reformed as it had been under her auspiceSe 
while she was determined not to yield to those caprices of 
the ultra-protestants, which originated rather in an unchari- 
table hatred of Home, than in the pure love of truth.^ 

brethren, as in former times. For, that they did so, is affirmed by very 
good authors, who much bemoaned the sad condition of the Church, in 
having her bowels torn in pieces by those v^ry Children which she had 
cherished in her bosom. By one of which, who must needs be of years 
and judginent at the time of this schism, we are first told what great 
contentions had been raised in the first ten years of her majestie's reign;, 
through the peevish frowardness, the out-cries of such as came from 
Geneva against the vestments of the Church, and such like matters. 
And then he adds, that being crossed in their desires touching those 
particulars, they separated from the rest of their Congregations ; and 
meeting together in houses, woods, and common fields, kept there their 
most unlawful and disorderly Conventicles." — Heylyri's History of the 
Presbyterians, p. 259. 

^Hist. of Puritans i. 129. 
^ The abuse of a thing doth not take away the lawful use of it. 
Nay, so far was it from the purpose of the Church of England to forsake 



238 



MUTUAL FORBEARA^•CE RECOMMENDED 



If, then, such was the principle by acting upon which our 
Church was placed in its present position, those members of 
our Church cannot be accused of inconsistency, who pursue 
a similar course ; nay, if tlie report be true that there are 
in our Communion some who still regard the Romish Church 
in too favourable a light, we may appeal to the result of this 
principle in the reign of Queen Elizabeth as a justification 
of our still acting upon it, since the majority which, at its 
commencement, inclined to Romanism, had, before its ter- 
mination, dwindled into a minority; and we have the testi- 
mony at the same time, of the French Ambassador to the 
wisdom of this procedure, who, on hearing the service of 
the Church of England performed, remarked, "that if the 

and reject the Churches of Italy, France, Spain, Germanvj or any such 
like Churches in all things that they held and practised that as the 
apolog}^ of the Church of England confesseth, it doth with reverence 
retain those ceremonies which do neither endamage the word of God nor 
offend the minds of sober men ; and only departed from them in those 
particular points wherein they have fallen both from themselves in their 
ancient integrity, and from the apostolical Churches which were their 
first founders." — Canons of the Church of England, Canon xxx. 

Tlie opposite system was adopted by many persons in the last century. 
As the Romanists were not to be won, the attempt was made by the 
discountenance of Catholic ceremonies, and by the addition of dissenting 
hymns to our service, to conciliate protestant dissenters. But this was 
the deed of individuals acting upon their private judgment, and not any 
decree of the Church, and consequently the result has been unsatisfactory. 
Persons whose principles are those of protestant dissent have conformed 
to the Church, under the notion that the Church ditters very little from 
the leading dissenting sects. When the principles of the ChmTh are 
fairly acted upon, these persons are first surprised and then exasperated. 
They are surprised to find the Church very different from what they 
thought it to be, exasperated at perceiving that unless they can prevent 
those principles from being carried out, they must, if consistent, become 
dissenters. 



IN THINGS INDIFFERENT. 



239 



reformed Churches in France had kept the same order, there 
would have been thousands of protestants more."' And with 
this testimony, that of the historian of the Puritans is found 
to accord, when, as a reason for the conformity of those 
whose tendency, in the early days of this reign, was to 
E-omanism, he assigns the fact which he thus states, (and 
which, as an historical statement, and as shewing that the 
same objections were urged against us then as now, is most 
valuable,) "the service performed in the Queen's Chapel, 
and in sundry Cathedrals, was so splendid and showy that 
foreigners could not distinguish it from the Roman, except 
that it was performed in the English tongue/'^ 

And now having digressed to meet an objection, which by 
those who, like him who is now addressing you, regard the 
reformation as a blessed event in the history of our Church, 
and who view with abhorrence the malpractices of the 
Church of Rome, will not be deemed unimportant, I shall 
revert to the rule of charity laid down in our text- AVe 
there find the Apostle urging men to mutual forbearance on 
the ground of their being united in principle, — their common 
principle being a desire to please the Lord. ''He that re- 
gardeth the day, regardeth it unto the Lord, and he that re- 
gardeth not the day, unto the Lord he doth not regard it : 
he that eateth, eateth unto the Lord, for he giveth God 
thanks : and he that eateth not, to the Lord he eateth not 
and giveth God thanks." 

And let me ask, may not a similar appeal be made in these 
days, to those who, on the one side endeavour to reduce 
our services to the greatest simplicity which a conscientious 
adherence to the Rubric will allow; and to those on the 
other side who desire to introduce all that ceremonial gran- 
deur, which the Church permits if she does not enjoin it; 
and by which to the disgust only of the Puritans, the early 
i Hist, of Puritans i. 144. 



240 MUTUAL FORBEARANCE RECOMMENDED 



days of the Reformation were, as we have seen distin- 
guished ? 

May we not remind those who are true Christians, not 
angry and bigotted polemics, that, however different their 
conckisions and their practice in this respect may be, they 
are both animated by one and the self-same feeling, even a 
holy jealousy for the honour of the Lord. In the one great 
principle both parties are united, that Christ is our all in all; 
on Him we depend for all we have and for all we are, and for 
all we hope for ; not on our works do any of us trust for 
salvation but on Christ and Christ only, Christ crucified, 
Christ glorified ; Christ once crucified for our redemption ; 
Christ now glorified and constantly interceding for us, and 
sending down unto us the Holy Ghost, the Comforter ; in 
these great p^nciples we are all united ; that we are by 
nature wretched, sinful, damnable, children of perdition, a 
mass of corruption, so that to render our salvation possible 
nothing less would sufSce than the incarnation and blood- 
shedding of our God : that, again, to make us meet for the 
heaven thus purchased for us, nothing less would suffice than 
the indwelling of God the Holy Ghost, to regenerate and 
sanctify and work a spiritual miracle upon our nature ; the 
coming of this Paraclete being one of the blessed results of 
the atoning sacrifice of the Cross. 

And if we find, as find we do, that there are good men who 
are opposed to forms and ceremonies and devotional obser- 
vances, lest the minds of men should be brought to rest upon 
them as an end, and thus become distracted from Christ, — 
where is the pious heart that cannot and will not sympathise 
with those fears ? Where is he that will not admit that 
men may become formalists as much by attending to outward 
ceremonies, as by placing their religion in the hearing of 
sermons ? The holy principle ought to be respected even 
by those who, through the same principle, are brought to 
the very opposite conclusion ; they ought to admit that there 



IN THINGS INDIFFERENT. 



241 



may be piety even where there exists an abhorrence of its 
outward expression. 

But the same rule of charity is to be appHed to those on 
the other hand who, with regard to ceremonial worship, 
insist upon its importance : their zeal for the ceremonies of 
the sanctuary is to be ascribed to the existence of that very 
principle which we have recognized in their opponents, and 
which we claim as a ground for forbearance and charity ; 
they value the outward forms because they think that instead 
of leading men from Christ, they bring them to Him; — they 
see Christ in every thing sacred, and they desire to be sur- 
rounded by signs and symbols which may constantly recall 
their thoughts, too apt to wander, unto Him in whose pre- 
sence they stand or kneel. They rest not in the outward 
form, but they use the form as men use glasses to assist their 
vision : as the best of glasses will be of no avail if the eye be 
blind, so they know that if the heart be unsanctified the most 
impressive ceremonies will be useless ; but when the heart is 
right with God, then by the use of a form it may learn to 
concentrate itself upon some fact of revelation which, with- 
out such form, could be but dimly seen. If they love the 
Church, it is not from partizanship, still less from a degrad- 
ing w^orldly notion of its being connected with the state, but 
because it is the body of Christ, **the fulness of Him that 
filleth all in all if they love the services of the sanctuary, 
it is because they are the voice of the spouse addressing 
Christ, and if they love the ceremonies of the sanctuary it is 
because they can, by observing them, act, as Mary did when 
she anointed our Saviour's feet, and, by little actions, evince 
their devotion to Christ, their only Master ; they know that 
it is only faith in Him which gives efficacy subjectively to 
the very sacraments themselves, and that it is His presence 
only that can make them objectively the means of grace. 
21 



242 MUTUAL FORBEARANCE RECOMMENDED 



Nay, those who will regard the case not as polemics, but 
as true Christians, will perceive that to ceremonial worship, 
reality of faith will of necessity lead, in the ordinary course 
of things ! as it has led in all branches of the Church, ex- 
cept where some external impediment is permitted to oppose 
itself. He who really believes that the Lord Jesus Christ 
is verily and indeed present, in an especial manner, accord- 
ing to His own most gracious promise, wherever His disci- 
ples are gathered together in His name ; he who regards this 
promise, not as a mere figure of speech, but as a reality, — 
he will need no prompting as to his reverential deportment 
in the house of God; what he would do if the Lord Jesus 
stood visibly before him, that he still does, because he really 
believes Him to be, truly, though invisibly, present: he who 
really believes that the Lord Jesus Christ is perfect God as 
well as perfect man, the two natures co-existing in the same 
divine PersoD, will not think scorn of the obeisance which 
the Church enjoins when he utters the name of Jesus, the 
name by which He who is our Lord and our God was known, 
when for us men and our salvation He was made man : he 
who really believes that when he enters God's house, he 
comes into the more immediate presence of the King of 
kings and Lord of lords, to whom in public worship the 
Church's homage is proffered, in communion with angels 
and archangels, and all the company of Heaven; that man 
will feel with St. Paul that in such a connexion, the smallest 
matter becomes of importance, while he will desire that all 
things may be done with a relative decency and order, such 
as would prevail in the house of an earthly sovereign, where 
all things will be of the choicest and best. Never will the 
font be desecrated, or the holy table be left unadorned by 
those who really believe what the Church teaches, that the 
sacraments are not mere badges of Christian men's profes- 
sion, but effectual signs of grace, signs by which God doth 



IN THINGS INDIFFERENT. 



243 



work invisibly in us, and by means of which grace is con- 
veyed to souls in which no impediment to its reception 
exists. 

And here in passing, we may remark, that from what has 
been said, it is clear that we act indiscreetly when we seek 
to enforce ceremonial observances, before we have created 
the appetite to desire them. Until men have become wor- 
shippers of God, not mere hearers of sermons, the observance 
of the ceremonies of the Church may only make them 
formahsts. Whereas, if by diligence and prayer, we succeed 
in making people really to have before their eyes the truths 
they are williag to profess, the tendency of their minds will 
not be to complain that our ceremonies are too many, but 
to desire that they may be more numerous. 

It is this feeling, carried perhaps to an extreme, which 
induces some persons to adopt what may be called private 
ceremonials, points of ceremony v/hich they impose upon 
themselves without any directions of the Church. As ex- 
ternals in devotion are nothing, when interior religion is 
wanting, the Church of England, in her wisdom and piety,- 
enjoins upon us no observances but those which the decen- 
cies of public worship require ; and as ceremonies, w^hen not 
enjoined, are among things indifferent, she leaves it to each 
individual to impose the observance of such upon himself, or 
to refrain from them entirely, as may conduce best, in his 
own opinion, to his edification. To the first prayer book of 
Edward the Sixth w^e are referred, as our authority in cere- 
monials, and there we find a rubric which is in perfect 
accordance with the spirit of our text: "as touching kneeling, 
crossing, holding up of the hands, knocking upon the breast, 
and other gestures ; they may be used or left, as every man's 
devotion serveth, without blame."™ 



^ Rubric at the end of Prayer Book, 



^44 MUTUAL FORBEARANCE RECOMMENDED 

But although on this ground toleration may be demanded 
for such persons as avail themselves of the hberty in which 
both the Gospel and the Church allow them, — these very 
persons ought on the other hand to have a regard for the 
prejudices of others to whom these observances give offence^ 
either because they are a tacit censure of themselves, or 
because they have been taught to look upon them as super- 
stitious and as symbolizing with Kome. In many who are 
given to theological discussion, but whose hearts are not 
softened by the grace of charity, these obsolete observances 
give rise to the most angiy feelings : and in others they 
create a prejudice against the truths of which they are in- 
tended to be the outward and visible signs. And if such be 
their effect, they who know the value of the outward sign, 
should remember that God sees the heart; that the heart 
may be humbled though the head do not bow, and if the 
outward act be restrained from a motive of charity, God will 
be better pleased with the charitable neglect, than with the 
haughty observance of a ceremony, which, under altered 
circumstances, may be useful to ourselves and harmless to 
others. On either side, there ought to be forbearance; let 
either side have charity towards weaker brethren. But if 
we permit our private fancies to interfere with the order of 
the congregation, then indeed we deserve not allowance but 
censure. Perfect uniformity in divine worship we cannot, 
for reasons assigned in this discourse, expect; a congregation 
advanced in spirituality, will require and adopt more of 
ceremonial worship than one which has not been so well 
instructed : and the rule we should each lay down for our- 
selves ought surely to be, to follow the custom of that 
Church in which we may chance to be worshipping, in all 
those minor details which are not positively enjoined by the 
rubric : we should not neglect to kneel, because we happen 
to be in a congregation where it is the evil custom irreve- 



IN THINGS INDIFFERENT. 



245 



rently to sit, when prayers are offered unto the Lord God 
omnipotent, for this is a ceremony which is not among the 
things that are indifferent to us, since it has been enjoined 
by the Church. But let us take a ceremony, not enjoined, 
but frequently observed, — that for instance, of turning to 
the east when the creed is rehearsed ; if, being present in a 
Church where this custom is obseiTcd, we were to turn to 
the west, this would be an outward and visible sign of a 
proud and perverse heart within ; but then the same thing is 
equally true, if when this custom is not observed, we make 
a point of evincing a superior knowledge by turning in a 
manner different from the rest of the congregation. 

Let it not be said that these things are beneath the notice 
of a Christian : the worldly philosopher may assert this, but 
not so the true Christian. He who reads the eleventh 
chapter of St. Paul's first Epistle to the Corinthians, in 
which an inspired Apostle devotes a chapter to the con- 
sideration of the proper apparel of women when they come 
into the presence of God and His holy angels, will per- 
ceive that the minute details of ceremonial worship are 
worthy of engaging a Christian's attention; and although 
it may be truly said that forms and ceremonies are but 
as the scaffolding to the building, yet let it be remembered 
that without a scaffolding such a goodly edifice as that in 
which we are now assembled could scarcely have been 
reared. It is not till the building is completed that the 
scaffolding is removed ; and let me ask where is the mem- 
ber of the Church Militant who will venture to say that 
he is completely built up in Christ Jesus? Where is the 
man who is not like the Church itself of which he is an 
atom, in a state of edification ? 

It is indeed, and let us never for a moment forget it, to 
build us up in grace and knowledge until the great and 
terrible day of the Lord, that every ordinance of the Church 
21* 



246 MUTUAL FORBEARANCE RECOMMENDED 



is intended, and all the writings and preachings of her min- 
isters designed. And wo be to us, if in us this end be not 
accomphshed — however wisely you may dogmatize upon 
what you deem to be God's pure and unadulterated word, 
hov/ever ceremoniously you may keep the ordinances, how- 
ever ardent your feelings, however strong your assurance, 
whatever may be your orthodoxy^ these things, if they 
have not terminated in good works. — if you have said 
••Lord, Lord," but given no heed unto that Lord, who 
hath declared that the dead shall be judged according to 
their works, and that before His judgment seat we must 
all appear; if, as is the manner of too many, you have 
talked about Christianity but not led Christian lives : if 
your knowledge has been without love, a cold coruscation 
playing round the head not warming the heart: if this be 
the case, then, — as it will be worse for Chorazin and 
Bethsaida than it will be for Sodom and Gomorrha, — the 
mercies you have neglected, the knowledge of which you 
have boasted, your fiery zeal or your cherished but un- 
used privileges, will only tend to your greater condemna- 
tion, will only serve to add a keener sting to the pangs 
of remorse in hell. Yes, to have enjoyed so much of 
divine illumination as to have seen the right path in which 
nevertheless you neglected to walk; to have experienced 
the constraining motions of the Holy Ghost to godliness but 
only to have rejected them: to have heard the sweet songs 
of Sion, but only with the carnal ear: to have felt inter- 
ested in the decencies of the sanctuary, but never to have 
penetrated beneath the external form,: to have discussed 
deep points of theology, but never to have realized them to 
your soul: to have stood at the very gate of heaven, to 
have caught a glimpse of its everlasting glories, and yet 
to have been shut out ; to have been dashed down into 
the bottomless pit from the very threshold of paradise, 



IN THINGS INDIFFERENT. 



247 



and there to find the waters of baptism only adding to the 
fury of the eternal flame, and the spiritual food intended 
to strengthen and refresh the soul converted into a deadly 
poison, not because in itself less holy, but from the un- 
worthiness of the recipient; to look up to the realms of 
bliss, and seeing there the saints in glory, to feel that 
their crown was almost within your grasp, that you did 
but just miss the path to those realms of light and life, — 
surely this, — the thought, I repeat it, of having been dashed 
down to perdition from the very gate of Heaven, — this 
will be in itself a Hell. 

Oh I my brethren, gifted, privileged, blessed as we are, let 
us remember that this may be the condition of any one of i/.s. 
We may fall from grace, we may perish everlastingly, we 
may become a castaway; and we are in danger of this until 
God has our entire heart, until we love the Lord our God 
with all our heart and all our mind and all our streno;th. 

And when we do thus love the Lord our God, then we 
shall walk in His commandments and ordinances blameless; 
or if peradventure there be some who shall be prejudiced 
against those ordinances which are not in strictness deemed- 
obligatory, in them, and in all of us. love to God will con- 
duce to brotherly love, and it shall be no longer said to our 
disgrace. See how these churchmen hate; Ephraim shall 
not envy Judah, and Judah shall not vex Ephraim ; we shall 
not each see in a brother churchman, according as his pri- 
vate judgment accords with, oris opposed to, our own, either 
on the one side a semi-papist, or on the other a mere Phari- 
see; but whether we desire, in the place where God's honor 
dwelleth, simpUcity or grandeur; whether we fear that cere- 
monial worship may lead men from Christ, or whether we 
regard it as a means of bringing them to Christ, mutual 
allowance and mutual forbearance will prevail, and we shall 
rejoice in the thought that we are aU connected by love to 



248 MUTUAL FORBEARANCE RECOMMENDED, &c. 



Jesus the only Saviour, and zeal for God the Blessed Trini- 
ty, while our joy is heightened by the thought that the hour 
is fast apjDro aching when many who are now kept apart by 
mutual suspicions, or the artifices of Satan, — will be united 
in love, a love which will never end, there, where all disput- 
ings as well as sorrows shall cease. 



SEEMON XII. 

Ikxxl of iJbolatrg. 



"Little children, keep yourselves from idols." — 1 John v. 21. 

The consecration of this Church is a subject for rejoic- 
ing ; and this for a two-fold reason ; it is in the first place, 
always a cause of Christian joy, when proYision is made in 
the wilderness for dispensing the bread of heaven, and when 
the wells of salvation are opened afresh, that people may 
draw thence the waters of life ; but there is an additional 
and an especial ground for rejoicing in the good work this 
day accomplished by the mercy of Godr since in this district 
Romanism is rife, and the advocates of that system are said 
to be particularly active. 

That Romanism is gaining ground in England is the boast 
of the Romanists themselves, and it is at the same time the 
complaint cf Protestants; and when two opposing parties 
are agreed, the one in asserting and the other in admitting 
the same fact, to maintain the contrary would be hazardous; 
and it is impossible to deny that there are many and obvious 
reasons why we should expect that Romanism, at the pre- 
sent time, and for a short season, should increase ; and why 

little children," persons of gentle dispositions, and of that 
childlike simplicity, which is the result of a conscious in- 
tegrity of purpose, who are unversed in the arts, or disgusted 
by the violence of controversy, should be in danger of being 
led astray. 

The Romish sect has in this country been lately advanced 
to a new position. It has been placed by the legislature on 



250 



PERIL OF IDOLATRY. 



the sarae footing as all other forms of dissent, and conse- 
quently the Romanists are now better able than they former- 
ly were to obtain a hearing for themselves. 

And not only have they obtained a right to speak, but 
there are also circumstances in the times which render men 
willing to hear them. The opinion is prevalent, that all men 
have a right to exercise their private judgment in choosing 
a religion for themselves ; there are many proud spirits who 
would scorn to "receive their religion from their mother or 
their nurse but, before a choice based upon the exercise of 
the private judgment can be fairly made, all parties ought 
surely to be heard; and it would be real illiberality were we 
to refuse to admit that, a priori, the Romanists are as likely to 
be right as the followers of Calvin or the disciples of Luther. 
They, therefore, who are seeking the truth, and go to all places 
of worship, determining hereafter to remain where they ''get 
most good," and find the greatest comfort, will visit the 
Romish in common with other chapels. 

But the Romanists have a further advantage. Owing to 
the removal of the political disabilities, a greater degree of 
intercourse has taken place between Romanists and Protes- 
tants, and friendly relations between them have been often 
established. Then, again, in consequence of the increased 
facilities for visiting the Continent, the English mind has 
become accustomed to many of the peculiarities of the 
Romish system. Much in that system has been discovered 
to be practically good; and, in many instances, the cere- 
monies which have been uncharitably sneered at as mum- 
meries, have been, upon examination, found to be ordinances 
pregnant with deep meaning. This intercourse with Ro- 
manists has led also to the discovery that many of the tradi" 
tional stories prevalent in England concerning Romanism 
have no foundation in fact, being the inventions merely of 
malignant wickedness, zealously received by malignant ere- 



PERIL OF IDOLATRY. 



251 



dulity, and so often repeated as to have assumed the appear- 
ance of an undoubted truth. But when once we have made 
the discovery that we have wronged a person or party, by 
having beUeved what is not the truth with respect to him or 
them, if we have a spark of generosity in our nature, Vv^e are 
not only anxious to do justice to that person or party, but 
also to their self-vindication on other points we are inclined 
to listen favourably ; and hence Komanism has obtained not 
only a hearing, but a favourable hearing. The case against 
the Romanist having been overstated, candid minds are sus- 
picious of all the anti-papistical statements made by Protes- 
tants, and the Romanist may fairly say, "If on one point 
you have been satisfied with my explanations, w^hy not lis- 
ten to my explanation on other points, which you will proba- 
bly find equally satisfactory?" Thus it is, that though 
falsehoods may seem to profit a controversialist for the time, 
they will in the end do damage to his cause. God will not 
permit His cause to be maintained by weapons taken from 
the armoury of Satan. 

Then again we may trace the progress of Romanism to 
the fact, that Protestant sects and parties, which were 
formerly distinguished for asceticism and self-denial, have 
gradually become worldly and self-indulgent. The protes- 
tant religious world can no longer be regarded as self-deny- 
ing; it denounces amusements prevalent in the world, which 
it calls profane, but only to supply their place by amusements 
peculiar to itself, which are the more offensive, from their 
being connected with a form of godliness. We have the 
bitterness, without the austerity of the Puritans, their self- 
sufficiency, without their pure morality, their ostentation, 
without their piety, their phraseology, without their contempt 
for creature comforts. Without entering into the question 
whether asceticism and austerity be or be not desirable in 
the professors of godliness, there are and always have been, 



252 



PERIL OF IDOLATRY. 



and always will be, some minds in which rehgion will take 
this turn ; and if these find the shadow only of asceticism, 
lingering in the once ascetic sects of Protestants, and see 
the thing itself wholly discouraged by English Churchmen, 
while they find the substance in the Romish sect, they 
will naturally incline to Romanism, and receive with glad- 
ness those devotional books and exercises which minister to 
their emotions of thoughtful sadness. 

The temper, too, exhibited by the Protestant world at the 
present time assists the Romanist in palliating that portion 
of the past history of his Church, which excites against her 
our strongest prejudices and our just indignation: namely, 
the persecutions to which the Reformers generally, and the 
Reformers of the English Church in particular, were ex- 
posed in the sixteenth century. On this point, indeed, we 
do not find the modern Romanist in general attempting to 
defend himself, further than to maintain, what can scarcely 
be denied, that by party violence the facts have been some- 
times exaggerated. Here he only seeks a drawn battle : he 
contents himself with saying, *' If we were intolerant in an 
intolerant age, were you any better ? If we persecuted 
under Mary, did not you persecute under Cromwell ? And 
if you reply, that you censure the Puritans of Cromwell's 
time, we rejoin, that we censure the Papists in Queen 
Mary's time. And, as regards the state of things at present, 
if you point to the toleration now" obtained for Romanism in 
England, we point to the toleration of Protestantism in 
Roman Catholic countries, and even in Rome itself." 

This seems to be a fair argument, against Protestantism 
in the abstract, and against mere Protestants, and, as I have 
already hinted, it obtains the greater force when reference 
is made to the bitterness of spirit, " the hatred, variance, 
emulations, wrath, strife, envyings," which are character- 
istic of the Protestant world at the present time, when every 



PERIL OF IDOLATRY. 



253 



man's hand seems to be against his brother, whether he be 
Catholic, E-omanist, or Protestant. The Romanist may 
fairly argue, that the spirit of a Bonner or of a Gardiner 
may animate the heart of a Protestant as well as of the 
Papist, and may be as truly exhibited in the maledictions of 
the press, as in the fires of Smithfield ; in moral as in physi- 
cal persecution. 

Nor may we here forget the deep impression made upon 
the minds of many by the solemnity of the rehgious services 
of Home ; a man of the world observing, and expressing 
clearly the feelings of others says, "that not only the im- 
pressive melody of the vocal and instrumental music, but the 
imposing solemnity of the ceremonies, raise the character 
of religion, and give it an air of dignity and majesty unknown 
to any of the reformed Churches."* 

Here, again, I am not enquiring whether this be a right 
or wrong impression ; I only quote the words to show that 
such an impression is made, and I mention the fact as one 
of the reasons why the cause of Romanism is gaining ground 
among us. These ceremonies may be ridiculed by some 
persons; although his heart must be radically bad who suffers 
himself to ridicule, however he may censure, the worship 
of any human being : the motive is always to be respected 
even when the action is wrong. But be these ceremonies 
ridiculous or not, (which, in truth, is merely a matter of 
opinion,) the impression they make on some devout and ima- 
ginative hearts is great. And hence to the ceremonies of 
religion, wherever Church principles prevail, a due import- 
ance will be attached. When men regard the prayers as 
only another form of preaching, and are desirous of obtain- 
ing through the Liturgy, as from the sermon, instruction or 
excitement for themselves; when they look upon public wor- 

^An Analytical Enquiry into the Principles of Taste, by Richard 
Payne Knight, p. 363. 
22 



254 



PERIL OF IDOLATRY. 



ship only as a useful exercise of their own minds ; they will 
find ceremonies in their way, they will find it more useful to 
sit than to kneel, because they can hear better; they will 
wish the minister to face them, and to address them, that 
they may hear distinctly every word he utters; they will 
wish to have the prayers read to them, and they would re- 
move all forms but those which enable the preacher of the 
prayers to address them, or, as the common phrase is, to 
pray to them" the more easily ; it is only consistent in lati- 
tudinarians thinking of themselves, their feelings, and their 
excitements, to despise ceremonies which are to them, and 
under these circumstances, so much worse than useless, that 
one is scarcely surprised to find such persons, when not 
bound by traditional prejudices of education, preferring the 
ostentatiously unceremonious worship of the conventicle to 
that of the Church, in which some ceremonies are unavoida- 
ble, even by those of the Clergy, who, in violating the 
E^ubric, are the most criminal. But take the Church view 
of public worship, and then, as I have said, their due import- 
ance will be attached to the ceremonies of divine worship. 
Once realize the idea that public worship is not a mere 
attendance at an appointed place to hear of Gon; that it is not 
a mere saying of prayer in public which may be nearly as 
well done in private ; once realize the idea that it is the 
means vouchsafed to a privileged class, the elect of God, of 
offering to the King of kings, in communion with all holy 
creatures, cherubim and seraphim, and all the hosts of hea- 
ven, the spiritual sacrifice of prayer and praise, and of making 
known the Church's wants to her Divine Head; once realize 
this sublime idea of public worship, and the value of cere- 
monies will be simultaneously admitted : for by ceremonies 
this idea is fostered ; and if we approach our earthly sove- 
reign with much of ceremony, that we may not fall into an 
undue familiarity, so will the same feeling influence us, — a 



PERIL OF IDOLATRY. 



255 



feeling of awful reverence, — whenever we approach the 
King of kings and Lord of lords, to give outward demonstra- 
tion of our internal sentiments, and, like the seraphim, with 
whom we worship, to veil our faces when standing before 
Him, who if He permits Christians to approach Him as a 
Father, is still the Sovereign, though the Paternal Ruler of 
all things. 

It would, indeed, be uncandid, were we to deny, when 
accounting for the progress of Romanisni, that the promi- 
nence of late years given to Church principles must have 
influence ; and we should observe what that influence is, and 
how far it extends. On examining the Church of England 
through her formularies, we discover that there are many 
principles which we hold in common with Romanists : they, 
as we, regard decency and order in approaching the Almighty 
God; they, as we, expect to meet God where He has pro- 
mised to meet us, in His Sacraments, when our hearts are 
prepared to receive Him. Such being the case, it is not 
wonderful that latitudinarian establishmentarians, when they 
embrace the doctrines of the One Holy Catholic and Apos- 
tolic Church, should apply to Homanism the principle upon 
which, before their conversion, they were accustomed to act 
towards Protestants. Hitherto they have been accustomed 
to hold a confederacy with all who agree with them in the 
doctrine of justification, even although they violate every 
principle of the Church; it is, then, as I have said, quite 
natural that, upon their conversion, they should incline to 
unite with those whose Church principles seem to coincide 
with theirs, although on the doctrine of justification and on 
other points they may differ. Into this error those who have 
been catholically educated in the discipline and doctrine of 
the Church of England are not Hkely to fall ; though, of 
course, there may be exceptions to the rule; for they have 
been taught from their youth upwards to mark and avoid the 



256 



PERIL OF IDOLATRY. 



promoters of schism as much on the one side as oo the 
other; they hold their Chmxh principles consistently, and 
applying those principles to every point of doctrine and prac- 
tice, they do not elevate one set of principles out of their 
proportion and above another set of principles; and having 
not merely skimmed their surface, but sounded their depth, 
they see how the Homanist sets Episcopacy aside by the 
addition of Popery, how he inteferes with the doctrine of 
the Sacraments, by placing other ordinances on an equality 
with the two Sacraments of justification, and how by excess 
in devotional ceremonies, he renders them extravagant rather 
than impressive. As people come to be more generally edu- 
cated in sound Church principles, the danger of regarding 
Romanism too favourably will wear away ; for, as we have 
seen, the dagger chiefly rests on those who are converts 
from latitudinarianism ; it is not a danger to which persons 
who have been always consistent Churchmen are much 
exposed. 

But converts from latitudinarianism are the more exposed 
to this danger, and the Romanists are especially aided by 
those who continue to be latitudinarians. Very great is the 
assistance which Romanists receive from these parties. As 
to doctrine, the object of the Romanist is to confound Catholi- 
cism with Romanism; and in this object their cause is not 
only supported, but most zealously advocated by latitudina- 
rians. Latitudinarians preach Popery by their very opposi- 
tion to it. Whenever the Romanists seek to confound their 
rule of faith with ours, because in the formation of her theo- 
logical system, and in the interpretation of Scripture, the 
Church of England and all sound Anglican divines defer to 
the traditional practices of the primitive ages, although she 
at the same time asserts the perfection of Scripture, which 
"containeth all things necessary to salvation; so that what- 
soever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not 



PERIL OF IDOLATRY. 



257 



to be required of any man that it should be beheved as an 
article of faith, or thought requisite or necessary to salva- 
tion;" when they would confound this use of tradition as an 
interpreter, with their abuse of it, by which the perfection 
of Scripture is denied, and tradition is regarded as an addi- 
tional rule of faith, of equal obligation with Scripture itself, — 
when they thus confound with their unsafe and unsound 
doctrine a system of interpretation which must commend 
itself to the minds of all intelligent, if unprejudiced, men, 
the Romanists are too often aided by latitudinarian violence, 
which would represent, as Romanists in disguise, all who 
hold that true doctrine of tradition by which alone the Ro- 
manists can be successfully refuted. Precisely in the same 
manner are Romanists assisted by latitudinarians, when the 
former seek to confound those two distinct doctrines — the 
scriptural doctrine of the Real Presence in the Eucharist, 
and the doctrine of transubstantiation, which is repugnant to 
the plain words of Scripture : or, when proceeding on the 
same principle of equivocation, they would represent as 
identical the primitive doctrine of a representative and 
spiritual sacrifice in the Holy Communion, and their own 
*' blasphemous fable and dangerous deceit," that in the mass 
there is a true, proper, and propitiatory sacrifice for the liv- 
ing and the dead. In these and in other similar matters the 
Romanists are too often assisted by the grandiloquent igno- 
rance of our popular preachers. 

The time does not permit, nor does the occasion require, 
that I should direct your attention to the precise points 
wherein the distinction between these several doctrines con- 
sists ; but since the distinction is obvious to those who have 
seriously considered these subjects, since many who would 
reject Romish innovations of a date comparatively modern, 
are prepared to receive what is ancient and Catholic, it is quite 
clear that the cause of Rome must be greatly strengthened, 
22* 



258 



PERIL OF IDOLATRY. 



when, their assertions in this respect being reiterated by 
Protestants, they are thus permitted by those who are most 
violently opposed to them to confound Romanism with 
Catholicism. I am at present merely stating a fact, not 
advocating any system of doctrine. It is a fact, that many 
persons, whether right or wrong, are ready to receive what 
is Catholic : and if large classes of persons, latitudinarians 
and Romanists, opposed in every thing else, agree in this, 
that Catholicism and Romanism are one ; we must not be 
surprised if some persons are found to believe this at last, 
and so to give way before the sophistry used by the advocates 
of Rome. 

It is thus that the Romanists have been permitted at this 
time to place themselves on a ground more advantageous 
than any which they have occupied in this country since the 
time of the Reformation. The controversy between us and 
Rome is now regarded by many as one bearing chiefly on 
the truth of certain opinions, which must be left to the de- 
cision of each man's private judgment; and on the expediency 
of certain forms and practices, which must be decided by 
each man's taste and feeling. So that there is, as it were, a 
kind of sectarian warfare waged between us, and we are occu- 
pied chiefly in details; some men pointing out peculiar excel- 
lencies which they suppose themselves to have discovered in 
the Romish system, others contending that every thing con- 
nected with Rome is hopelessly and irretrievably corrupt ; 
while not a few, both in Rome and in England, hope and 
believe that a re-union between the two Churches may in a 
short course of time be effected. In . all this the gain is 
incalculable on the side of Rome. This is called Popery, 
and that is called Popery, and every thing that a perverse 
man dislikes, or an ignorant man does not understand, he 
calls Popery, until men begin to think that, after all. Popery 
is as often right as it is wrong ; and thus they keep out of 



PERIL OF IDOLATRY. 



view the real, besetting, withering sin of Popery. Let us 
concede to Rome for the sake of argument, all that she de- 
mands ; let us accept her exaggerations, ^Yhetller in her own 
favour or to our disparagement ; let us admit that in her 
interpretation of Scripture she is as likely to be right as the 
latitudinarian ; let us acknowledge that in the majesty of her 
services, and the symbolical sublimity of her ordinances, she 
surpasses the Church of England; for the sake of argument, 
let us admit this, and more than this, — still we are compelled 
to ask ; In whose praise does the pealing anthem swell along 
your aisles? for whose honour is this high service intended? 
And in nine cases out of ten, the answer must be, that these 
things are intended, not for the sole glory of God, the Bles- 
sed Trinity, but for the honour of the creature, of one 
"highly favoured," no doubt, "among women:" but if of 
creatures the most distinguished, still a creature, and merely 
a creature, a woman born like ourselves in sin, and saved 
only by the blood-shedding of her Blessed Son — they are 
intended for the honour of the Virgin Mary. 

This is the answer— the idolatry of Rome — to be returned 
to all those, whether in the Church of England or in the 
Church of Rome, who dream of a re-union between the two 
Churches. 

How is it possible by any concessions, by any explanations, 
to effect a reconciliation between two religious communities, 
in which the object of worship is not the same ? How can 
there be union with Rome, while she practically elevates 
the Virgin Mary into an idol, and we, who hold the perfec- 
tion of Scripture, are commanded to keep ourselves from 
idols ? 

We might indeed regard the Romanists as idolaters for 
their worship of images ; but they tell us that they do not 
intend by this unholy practice to worship wood and stone, 
the work of men's hands, but the person whom the wood and 



260 



PERIL OF IDOLATRY. 



stone represents. Let us then accept tlieir explanation, 
with the passing observation, that if the explanation suffices, 
such a sin as the worship of images never existed, and the 
second commandment was as needless to the sons of Israel 
as it seems to be regarded by the Church of Rome, for the 
very heathens must have held this same doctrine with refer- 
ence to their images : and if they thought one image more 
holy than another, they v»-ere only guilty of the same incon- 
sistency as the Romanists. But, as 1 have said, on this point 
we will forbear to dwell, that we may proceed to inquire, 
whom does the image represent? ^Vhose image is that 
which is most honoured and adorned in every Romish sanc- 
tuary ? and the very stones cry out that the image which 
stands foremost is that of the Blessed Virgin. 

It is said that supplication is only made to the Virgin that 
she may act as the intercessor of her worshippers ? ^Ve at 
once may answer, that to apply to her for intercession (and 
what I now say has reference to the Vv'hole doctrine of the 
intercession of departed saints.) is to interfere with one of 
the fandamentril verities of our holy faith,— one of the deepest 
sources of Christian consolation, — the intercession of the 
one and on]y Mediator. 

Against this sin the exhortations are many in the New 
Testament, because into this sin ''little children'' are easily 
led; and it is because the sin is the result of a scriptural 
principle wron2:ly applied, that those who have been educated 
in it are so unwilling to renounce it. The voice of nature 
as well as of revelation declares that the Almighty Lord 
God is to the sinful creature an awful Being, a terrible Lord 
God, a consuming fire : this is a truth at the very foundation 
of all revealed religion, a truth implied in the condemnation 
of our race for original sin, and in man's consequent need of 
a Saviour. Except through the intercession of a Mediator, 
God is too awful to be approached by man, even in a state of 



PERIL OF IDOLATRY. 



261 



redemption. But what is the glory, what the consolation of 
the Gospeh? Is it not this: that, to provide ns with a Medi- 
ator,— to afford us the means of approaching tlie otherwise 
unapproachable God, — the AVord was made flesh, and the 
manhood was taken into God; so that in the Lord Jesus, 
perfect God though He be, we have a great High Priest 
that is passed into the heavens, — a High Priest who can be 
touched with the feelings of our infirmities, and was in all 
points tempted like as we are, though without sin?'^' Al- 
though to approach God, then, in Himself were impossible, 
we may approach God Incarnate — in Him we may abide, 
and He will abide in us, if through faith we are in a state 
of justification; and abiding in Hi^i who is God as well as 
man, we are in communion with God HniSELF. Having 
such a Mediator, we are commanded "to come boldly,"' ?. e. 
without looking through r false humility for any otlter Medi- 
ator, to "come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may 
obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.'**^ Is it 
not an impeachment of the mercy of God Incarnate, our only 
Mediator, to seek any other intercessor? The Romanists 
seem to forget that although the Lord Jesus Christ is true 
God, and to be worshipped, He is also very man : were it not 
so, they would not, in their eagerness for another Mediator, 
invest their " Virgin of the assumption*' with the attributes 
of Deity, and so place her in the only Mediator's office. It 
is no answer to this to say that we ourselves employ the 
intercession of living saints, and that all who believe in the 
communion of saints, believe that the holy ones in the 
Church triumphant unite their prayers with ours ; for the 
question here is, as to the jjrincijjle upon which the prayers 
of others are sought. AVe do not seek the prayers of others, 
— we do not value intercessory prayer, as a means by which 
we may approach Hm who, except for such intercession, 

^ Heb. iv. 15. c Heb. iv. 16. 



262 



PERIL OF IDOLATRY. 



we should not dare to approach. We seek not the prayers of 
our fellow-creatures as if by their own righteousness, their 
own entreaty, they could obtain what ice can not. But we 
pray for one another, because there is a mysterious efficacy 
in joint prayer ordained by God, of which efficacy, through 
the medium of Christian friends, we would avail ourselves: 
even as for the general vrelfare the one voice of the universal 
Church goes up on high — the incense of prayer, grateful to 
the Almighty Father when offered through the mediation 
of His only-begotten So>'. The word intercession is used 
in the two cases in a different sense. 

But, my brethren, it is not as an intercessor, only or chiefly, 
that the Virgin Mary is worshipped in the Church of Eome. 
To her the Eomanist flies for direct refuge and protection ; 
to her he prays directly for strength against all his enemies 
visible, and invisible, and (it is an awful thought!) upon her 
he calls to say unto his soul, I am thy salvation — although 
"there is no Saviour beside Me,''*^ saith the Lord of hosts. 
But still further: to her the Romanists ascribe the attributes 
of God himself: they address her, as their patroness and 
deliverer : they pray to her to assist them, to guide them in 
their councils ; they address her as able to do all things in 
heaven and earth. I do not deny that God, the Blessed 
Trinity, is also worshipped in the Eoman Church; but when 
I speak of the idolatry of Rome, I ask whether He and He 
o>'LT is worshipped ] I might almost ask, with reference 
to some foreign Churches, whether God, the Blessed Trini- 
ty, is the c/./^V/ object of worship? And what is idolatry but 
the giving to any thing created that homage, that adoration, 
that worship, which is due only to the Creator?^ The 

'^Isaiah xliii. 11. 

^ Upon this subject I ma}- refer the reader to the first and fifth of the 
Letters to Dr. AVisemarij by the Rev. William Palmer, of Worcester 
CoUege — letters which have not been refuted. I may add the follow- 
ing extracts from the Psalter of Bonaventure : 



PERIL OF IDOLATRY. 



263 



very reason why the highest title which the Virgin bears 
was conceded to her by the Universal Church in the Council 

Extract from the Crown of the Blessed Virgin;" — 

" O thou, our governor, and most benignant Lady, in right of being 
His mother, command your most beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, 
that He deign to raise our minds from longing after earthly things to the 
contemplation of heavenly things." 

Extract from a "Parody on the Te Deum," by the same writer: 
We praise thee, Mother of God; we acknowledge thee to be a vir- 
gin. All the earth doth worship thee, the spouse of the eternal Father. 
All the angels and archangels, all thrones and powers do faithfully serve 
thee. To thee all angels cry aloud, with a never-ceasing voice, Holy, 
holy, holy, Mary, Mother of God .... The whole court of heaven doth 
honour thee as Queen. The holy Church throughout all the world doth 
invoke and praise thee, the Mother of Divine IMajesty. . . . Thou sittest 
with thy Son on the right hand of the Father. ... In thee, sweet Mary, 
is our hope; defend us for evermore. Praise becometh thee; empire 
becometh thee ; virtue and glory be unto thee for ever and ever." 

Extract from a ''Parody on the Athanasian Creed," by the same 
writer : — 

^' Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he 
hold the right faith concerning Mary; which faith, except every one do 
keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly 

He (Jesus Christ) sent the Holy Spirit upon His disciples, and 

upon His mother, and at last took her up into heaven, where she sitteth 
on the right hand of her Son, and never ceaseth to make intercession 
with Him for us. 

" This is the faith concerning the Virgin Mary, which, except every 
one do believe faithfully and firmly, he cannot be saved."* 

Extract from a work by Alphonsus Liguori, called '' The Glories of 
Mary :"t— 

* Sancti Bonaventurae Opera, tom. vi. part ii., from p. 466 to 473. 
Fol. Moguntice, IG09. 

t " The Glories of Mary, Mother of God, translated from the Italian 
of blessed Alphonsus Liguori, and carefully revised by a Catholic Priest." 
John Coyne, Dublin, 1333. 



264 



PERIL OF IDOLATRY. 



of Ephesus, — that of Mother of God, is a kind of protest 
against this sin of worshipping her. The Church worships 
the Lord Jesus Christ, and says, *'Son of David, have 

During the pontificate of Gregory the Great, the people of Rome 
experienced in a most striking manner the protection of the Blessed 
Virgin. A frightful pestilence raged in the city to such an extent that 
thousands were carried off, and so suddenly, that they had not time to 
make the least preparation. It could not be arrested by the vows and 
prayers which the holy Pope caused to be offered in all quarters, until 
he resolved on having recourse to the Mother of God. Having com- 
manded the clergy and people to go in procession to the church of our 
Lady, called St. IMary Major, carrying the picture of the Holy Virgin, 
painted by St. Luke, the miraculous effects of her intercession were 
soon experienced ; in every street as tney passed the plague ceased, and 
before the end of the procession an angel in human form was seen on 
the tower of Adrian, named ever since the Castle of St. Angelo, sheath- 
ing a bloody sabre. At the same moment the angels were heard sing- 
ing the anthem ' Regina Cceli,' ' Triumph, O Queen,' * Hallelujah.' The 
holy pope added ' Ora pro nobis Deum,' pray for us, &c. The Church 
has since used this anthem to salute the Blessed Virgin in Easter time." 
— True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, p. 21 

Extract from the Encyclical Letter of Pope Gregory XVI : — 
"Having at length taken possession of our See in the Lateran Basil- 
ica, according to the custom and institution of our predecessors, we turn 
to you without delay, venerable brethren ; and in testimony of our feel- 
ing towards you, we select for the date of our letter this most joyful day, 
on which we celebrate the solemn festival of the most Blessed Virgin's 
triumphant assumption into heaven; that she, who has been through 
every great calamity our patroness and protectress, may watch over us 
writing to you, and lead our mind by her heavenly influence to those 
counsels which may prove most salutary to Christ's flock .... But that 
all may have a successful and happy issue, let us raise our eyes to the 
most Blessed Virgin Mary, who alone destroys heresies, who is our 
greatest hope, yea, the entire ground of our hope." 

For other quotations to the same purpose, see the very useful and 
learned volume " On Roman Fallacies and Catholic Truths," by the 
Rev. H. T. Powell. 



PERIL OF IDOLATRY. 



265 



mercy upon ns." But this even we should not do unless it 
were our faith that the divine and human natures are united 
together in the one Person of the Lord Jesus Christ, so 
that they impart to each other their different attributes. 
The two natures are so joined together that neither subsists 
without the other, and both together form one single Person, 
which cannot be separated in all eternity. Him, therefore, 
that was born of the Virgin we may worship as the Son of 
David without idolatry, for though the Son of David, He is 
also God Himself : and thus we find, that as in seeking the 
intercession of the Virgin, the Romanists dishonour the man- 
hood of Christ, so in making her the object of prayer, they 
do dishonour to his Godhead. 

Assuredly it was in the spirit of prophecy that St. John 
wrote the words of our text. He addresses himself to little 
children; not to angry controversialists, contending for opin- 
ions, but to persons of meek, and gentle, and child-like dis- 
positions ; and he foresees that to the sin of idolatry such 
persons may possibly be tempted : their deep abiding sense 
of the holiness of God ; their reverent disposition, their 
solemn consciousness of their own unworthiness, will make 
them realize to their hearts their incessant need of a media- 
tor; and therefore he sets before them the Lord Jesus 
Christ, as the one prevailing Intercessor, who, though 
God, is also man, and may therefore be by man approached, 
even as an elder brother : and thus, in directing them to keep 
themselves from idols, he exhorts them to seek no other 
intercessor except that which it is the glory of Christians to 
possess. 

Here let us pause. We have seen some of the reasons 
why we should expect that Romanism should at the present 
time be gaining ground : we have also seen what its real sin 
is, — to which in fact all the peculiarities of that Church, all 
that is Romish and not Catholic, either directly or indirectly* 
23 



266 



PERIL OF IDOLATRY. 



tend. And since there can be no doubt that all here present, 
having been educated in a branch of the Catholic Church 
which has been purified from idolatry, hold that practice in a 
just abhoiTence, we must all feel it to be our bounden duty 
to prevent "little children*' from being perverted to Roman 
ism. 

But you will have observed, from what has been already 
said, that idolatiy is a sin which may be so veiled, that the 
Christian, not less than the Jew of old, may be deceived 
into the commission of it. By Scripture, indeed, we are 
warned that there is danger of idolatry among Christians : 
and when we look upon the largest portion of Christendom, 
we find the prevalence of idolatry in the Christian Church 
to be a fact. In the Roman Church there have been, and 
there are, men of enlightened minds, who have nevertheless 
been reconciled to the worship of the Virgin : and we are 
not therefore to suppose that nothing can be urged in favour 
of it. Viewing Mariolatry as we do, we at once pronounce 
Rome to be idolatrous: but against idolatry, nakedly con- 
sidered, the Romanist would protest equally with ourselves. 
It comes to his mind, accustomed to the practice from early 
youth, disguised by the sophistry which seeks a distinction 
between 3Iarioiatry and idolatry, although noDe does in 
reality exist. Let us not then proudly say, "Here is idola- 
try; no true Christian can be perverted to it." For the 
arguments, whatever they may be, which satisfy those who 
were born within the pale of the Romish Church, to what 
we, having no prejudices in her favour, regard as idolatry, 
may, though of course, with greater difficulty, reconcile to 
it the most determined Protestant, if, in seeking the consola- 
tions of religion and aids to devotion, that Protestant is drawn 
by circumstances to hold friendly intercourse with the Ro- 
mish Separatists. 

Let this be borne in mind by those latitudinarians who 
remain in the Church of England, and who would fain drive 



PERIL OF IDOLATRY. 



267 



out of it those of their brethren who, in renouncing Roraish 
peculiarities, still retain Catholic truth, and cling with affec- 
tion to the Catholic practices preserved in our Church. I 
would entreat and implore them to consider what it is that 
they propose to do. They bold the right of private judg- 
ment, and then, because the private judgment of others 
differs from their own in some matters of doctrine or opin- 
ion, they would drive them to idolatry. Supposing them to 
be right, and to have (what I believe they have not) sound 
knowledge, — still we may ask them, '"Through thy know- 
ledge shall thy weak brother perish for whom Christ died 1 
When ye so sin against the brethren, and wound their weak 
conscience, ye sin against Christ."^ I am sure they would 
not so act. if it were not that, without due consideration, 
they apply to others principles peculiar to themselves. A 
latitudinarian making his religion to consist in the system of 
theology which commends itself to his private judgment, 
means by a Church an association of persons whose general 
opinions as to the sense of Scripture are the same. If cir- 
cumstances were to occur to force such a one from the 
Church of England, he might suffer some worldly detriment, 
but spiritual damage, in his own estimation, he would re- 
ceive none. He might unite himself to the Presbyterians or 
the Independents, whose opinions he may conceive to be 
substantially accordant with the Thirty-nine Articles; or if 
he prefer the Liturgy to extempore prayer, he might form a 
sect using it either wholly or in part, as may seem to him 
most expedient. But he ought to remember that, however 
much he may despise them, they who hold the doctrine of 
"one Catholic and Apostolic Church'' have a principle dif- 
ferent from his, which, whether right or wrong in his opin- 
ion, must influence them. Contending as they must for 
orthodoxy of doctrine, their religion does not consist in their 

^ 1 Cor. viii. 11, 12 



268 



I 

PERIL OF IDOLATRY. 



opinions, or -in tlie maintenance of a peculiar system of 
theology; what they seek is the supernatural grace of God : 
this grace. — be they fools for doing so or not. — ^they seek in 
the appointed way. and they believe it is to be conferred on 
hearts prepared by penitence and faith to receive it. by God 
the Holt Ghost, throngh the Sacraments of justirication * 
but the Sacraments, to be salutary, must, as they believe, be 
duly administered : but to be duly administered, they must 
be administered by persons commissioned by God. and they 
therefore hold the necessity of the Apostolical succession: 
which succession, notwithstanding; the combined eUorts of 
the Romanists and the latitudinarians to prove the contraiy,, 
they believe to exist in the Church of England, and there- 
fore they love her. their spiritual mother. Avith no ordinary 
love. Xow these persons, for holding all these great truths 
of the Gospel, m.av be re^'arded bv latitudinarians as weaker 
than little children. — "we are Vv-eak, and ye are wise." 
But if any party shall say to them "'the emoluments of an 
Esrablishmient should be administered to propagate the 
opinions of the majority, who only are competent, whether 
they have studied the subject or not. to pronounce on the 
m.eanin^s: of her formularies ; you happen to form the mi- 
nority : we scorn you. we hate you. we despise you. but will 
tolerate you, if you will quit the Establishment; and form a 
new sect of yourselves out of the Church." — ^That party 
exhorts them to do vrhat they have no power to do. Be- 
longing to the Church, not because it is an Establishment, 
but because it is a branch of the Catholic Church, they can- 
not form a sect, for a sect would not supply to them what in 
a Church they require : and therefore if at any time they are 
driven by a tyrant majority from the Church of England, 
and in consequence from all Churches in visible communion 
with her, they can only go to the Church of Rome. And 
Rome, we know, deals gently, if not craftily, with those who 



PERIL OF IDOLATRY. 



269 



thus resort to her. The Eomanists in England regard 
themseh'es as missionaries, and their system of conducting 
missions is to act leniently as to what they consider errors 
in their converts, and. if there be a willing mind, to lead 
them gradually to what they deem to be the truth : the pre- 
judices of their converts against worshipping the Blessed 
Virgin they will for a season bear with : they have even 
gone so far as to say. that such worship is tolerated rather 
than enjoined in their formularies : liberty of opinion will be 
granted them for a time ; and only a little time will be ne- 
cessary, for the mind will gradually yield its consent to what 
it sees practised by persons loved and respected : and so it 
is, that all who hold communion with Rome, whatever may 
be the explanations they adopt, become practical idolaters. 

See, then, the sin into which the latitudinarian would 
drive these little children." merely because their private 
judgment ditrers from his own. I say their private judg- 
ment: for even though informing our judgment we defer 
to the tradition of the Church, still, since it is our judgment, 
we have a ri2:ht to claim for it the respect vvhich is shown 
to the judgment of any other person, however ditferently 
formed. Tt i< more than private judgment — bat it l> private 
judgment al-o. But when I call upon latitudinarians to be 
consistent, and rather to tolerate a diitereuce of opinion than 
to place men in a peril of idolatry, let it net be supposed that 
I would speak lightly of soimduess of doctrine. AVe are 
never to forget that heresy is a sin. and therefore to be 
strongly opposed: but then we ought always to remember 
what heresy is. By heresy vre mean a perverse adherence 
to any deduction of Scripture made by our private judgment, 
when that deduction is found to be contrary to a decisiou or 
definition of the Church. It is evident from this, that they 
who tell us that their religion is the Bible, and the Bible 

only, as interpreted bv each man's private judgment for him- 
23* 



270 



PERIL OF IDOLATRY. 



self, can have do right to predicate heresy of any other man. 
for morally speaking, (and heresy has reference to the 
morals.) one man's private judgment is as good as another's : 
and. if he errs intellectually, he may be regarded as a bad 
logician, but not surely as a heretic. And therefore, when 
any one holding these principles speaks of any other one as 
an heretic, he only uses a hard vrord to gratify his maleTolent 
feelings, and speaks of him as a person who. under such a 
system, cannot have an existence. There must be a Church 
with power to decide, before there can be a heresy : and 
heresy is an oltence ascertainable in any given instance by a 
prosecution in our ecclesiastical courts. Let the Sabellian 
and the Xestoriau. let those who deny the grace of the 
Sacraments, and contradict in the pulpit the doctrine taught 
at the font or the altar, be duly punished. — ^but within the 
limits permitte'd by the Church, let liberty be conceded to 
them, and the liberty we claim for ourselves let us extend to 
others. 

On one point, however, we must be all agreed, that idolatiw 
is a sin : and if it be a sin practised by Rome, surely it be- 
comes our duty, instead of doing that which may drive men 
to Eome. to rob Eome an the contrary of her attractions, by 
supplvins in our own Church the wants of our little children, 
whether it be meat or milk. 

Why should we send to Rome those who, like St. Paul, 
would be "in fastings often," and who. while rejoicing in 
their Christian privileges, would mingle sorrow with their 
joy, and rejoice with ti'embling: who. while regarding the 
LoRi>-s day as a feast, their great spiritual and weekly holy- 
day, would seek to mortify the desh. and more and more 
effectually to crucify the whole body of sin on the weekly 
fast, and on those other days of fasting and abstinence ap- 
pointed by the Church? Are these persons to be made 
favourable to Rome, as they will be, if for obeying the 



PERIL OF IDOLATRY. 



271 



Church of England they are reviled as semi-papists; by 
which it is insinuated that the Papists obey their Church, 
while we persecute those who obey our's ? Surely the 
diflficulty here lies not with the reviled, but with the revilers ; 
the difficulty is not to prove that we of the Church of Eng- 
land may fast, but that we may abstain from fasting. Let 
those who in this respect assume a dispensing power, (and 
in the present state of discipline among us, V\"hen we must 
each take the dispensing power upon ourselves, I wish to 
imply censure to no one.) let those who feast while others 
fast, be content with their liberty, and not speak harshly of 
others, who. in fasting, do whp.t their accusers perhaps are 
unable to do: lest peradventure it be said of their revilers, 
that they reviled because they felt self-condemned, and 
desired the fame of godliness, without its seli^denials. 

Certainly no man need leave the Church of England in 
order to lead a stricter and more serious life, if he will only 
conform his conduct to the rules of her Prayer Book, and 
the direction of her Canons. 

By members of the legislature, and by certain portions of 
the public press, a contrast is often made between the Clergy 
of the Church of England and the Clergy of the Church of 
E-ome : and however indignant we may feel if the compari- 
son is permitted to be made in favour of the latter, and how- 
ever unjust such a comparison may be if it is made to the 
disparagement of the general zeal and activity of the present 
race of English Clergy, yet, since attention having been 
called, attention will now be paid, to this subject, we may 
depend upon it, that if it shall be found that in those ordi- 
nances and observances which are common to the Churches 
of England and Rome, the Clergy of Rome adhere piously 
to all the solemn arrangements of their Church, and the 
Clergy of England, although the ordinances and observances 
a,re strictly enjoined by the Prayer Book and the Canons, 



272 



PERIL OF IDOLATRY. 



from whatever cause, evade them, or so perform them as 
only to render them mere forms, burdensome to themselves 
and unmeaning to others, the end will be that an impression 
will be made on the public mind in favour of the Eoman, and 
to the prejudice of the English priests. And wo to the 
Clergy of England, if, by their perverseness or their care- 
lessness, it shall he found, at the last day, that we have been 
the cause of sending "little children" to Kome, stained as 
she is by idolatry. But let the Clergy of England, instead 
of despising, observe, to the very letter, as far as m.ay be, 
what the Church appoints; let them be persuaded, whether 
Bishops, Priests, or Deacons, that the discretionary power 
they now assume, as to the regulations of the Church, is a 
very dangerous as well as p. questionable power; let them 
humbly remember, that although they are not, or rather 
ought not to be, as dissenting teachers, slaves of their con- 
gregations, they are, nevertheless, the sworn servants of the 
Church, to whom they are to render the most dutiful obe- 
dience. Yes, the Bishops themselves, though fathers to us, 
are only servants of the Church : and let all the Clergy bear 
in mind, that the Church has been endowed, that they re- 
ceive the wages of the Church, not to do good in the way 
their private judgment may think best, not as mere almoners 
to the poor, or superintendents of schools, important as 
these offices in addition are, but that the Church may have 
servants in each parish, prepared to administer not what 
ordinances the}' approve of, but all the ordinances of the 
Church, not in the manner the}^ best like, but in the precise 
manner prescribed by the Church, to every member of the 
Church residing within their respective parishes, who, being 
qualified to participate in them, demands them at our hands. 
The Quaker is quite as much justified in refusing to pay the 
pecuniary dues of the Church, because he disapproves of a 
religious establishment, as the Clergyman can be who neg- 



PERIL OF IDOLATRY. 



273 



lects or alters an ordinance because it does not happen to 
commend itself to his judgment ; and any one parishioner 
has as much right to demand of his pastor the daily prayers, 
and a strict observance of the festivals, as the pastor has to 
require the payment of his tithes. The temporal dem^ands 
are paltry, and beneath contempt, as compared with the 
spiritual; but I repeat it, the pastor has no more right to 
refuse daily prayers to the parishioner, than the parishioner 
his peculiar dues to the Clergyman. Oh I that the laity 
would insist upon their spiritual rights with half the zeal 
that latitudinarians exact their worldly hire ! The question 
is not whether some service is rendered to the Church by 
those who enjoy her endowments, but whether the j^ari^ici^kr 
and appointed service is rendered. Let the Clergy, as 
honest men, consider these things, and then the daily service, 
the observance of saints' days, the keeping of the festivals, 
will no longer be a mark to distinguish the stricter and more 
serious of the Clergy : but these things being common in 
the land, the laity of the Church, to w4iom, and not to the 
Clergy only, the Church belongs, since of the body they 
form the most considerable part, will soon see that it is not 
necessary to go to Rome in order that they may enjoy those 
high privileges which, as members of the Church, they have 
a right to enjoy, and for their enjoyment of which the 
Church of England has made ampfe provision. 

If the Clergy are afraid that, by the performance of these 
and of other good w^orks, such as charity the result of self- 
denial, may suggest ; men will trust in their works, which 
were indeed a sin, let them not be wiser than the Church 
itself, which, while it condemns such sin, entertains no such 
fears. It seems an illegitimate method of preventing men 
from trusting in their good w^orks to take steps to discou7-age 
them from doing any good works at all : let the works be 
done, and let us charitably hope that they are done only in 



274 



PERIL OF IDOLATRY. 



zeal and love for the King of kings, and not from any vain 
notion of purchasing that salvation which all, who are con- 
sistent Christians, are prepared to profess and to proclaim, 
could be purchased by nothing less than the blood of God 
Incarnate. 

And if it be by the sublimity and grandeur of her services, 
marking clearly that the offices of devotion are not merely 
another kind of preaching intended for the instruction of 
hearers, but the appointed mode by which elect and justified 
persons approach their God ; if it be by affording through 
her ordinances free scope to the feelings with which the 
piously imaginative heart is pregnant — the feelings of awe 
and majesty, of tenderness and devotion combined, that 
Rome is winning to her the hearts of "httle children," un- 
designing theniselves, and therefore unsuspicious of others, — 
let us, in very charity, when offering the Church's sacrifice 
of prayer and praise, endeavour to meet these wants, and to 
aid these aspirations of persons w^ho feel themselves better 
qualified to worship and adore their God, than to sit in judg- 
ment upon the opinions of a preacher ; especially let this be 
done when all that is required is to perform the services as 
the Rubric directs, and with such assistance from music as 
the Church permits; or, at all events, let this observance of 
the letter, and this deference to the spirit of the English 
Church, be tolerated in some of our sanctuaries, if it be only 
to save our little children from the fascinations of Rome. 
Enough, and more than enough, has been done by those 
who are political friends, rather than dutiful children of the 
Church, with a view to conciliate Protestant Dissenters, 
and to render them less hostile to an establishment: old 
ceremonies have been neglected, and new ones introduced, 
the tendency of which has been to lower the services ad- 
dressed to God, and to elevate the preacher's pomp :s in the 

si may instance the ceremonious change of dress which takes place 
in the middle of the service in many churches. After having said the 



PERIL OF IDOLATRY. 



275 



shape of metrical hymns, human inventions have been adopt- 
ed ; and thus a very large addition has been made to that 
Prayer Book, which we have received from our Reformers 
as they from their Cathohc forefathers : whole offices, such 
as that of Baptism and the Holy Communion, have been 
altered, abridged, parts added to them, and parts taken from 
them, by the Clergy, who have vowed to observe them 
entire, but who have seen the evil of preaching one thing at 
the font, or the altar, and another in the pulpit, and have 
thought themselves right, and the Church, therefore, wrong; 
and these things have been sanctioned because the end seems 
to have justified the means, and because by means such as 
these, the kneelings of our sanctuaries, having been con- 
verted into pews, they have been filled by those w^ho, dis- 
senters at heart, have tolerated the prayers, that they may 
express their sympathies in the metrical hymns, and sit under 
the favourite orator : enough, and more than enough, has, 
in this respect, been done; let something now be conceded, 
when the Romanists are up and busy in the land, to save 
" little children" from idolatry, not by adding to, not by 
taking from, the Prayer Book, but by an honest observance 
of all that the Church of England therein appoints. 

And as this shall be done, we shall disarm the Romanists of 
one powerful weapon which they now wield against us; and 

Prayers in a surplice, the Clergyman proceeds, often with great pomp, 
to the vestry, where he throws off the surplice, and then comes forth in 
a silk gown; such as many dissenting preachers use, but which is no 
where ordered in our Prayer Book ; and thus adorned, he proceeds to 
the Pulpit. T may also refer to the custom of late years introduced, of 
having two pulpits in the church, by which means much space is use- 
lessly occupied. If it be necessary to have a pulpit that the prayers 
may be preached as well as the sermon, surely one pulpit would suffice. 
To those who wish to address the Prayers not to the people but to 
Almighty God, any pulpit, except for the sermon, is offensive. They 
desire to look f ro7n the people, not to them. 



276 



PERIL OF IDOLATRY. 



while we ourselves receive the benefits, which must result 
from om' strict attendance on the Sacraments and ordi- 
nances of the Chmxh, and from the reverential spirit of 
devotion which, through her well-ordered ceremonies, we 
shall imbibe; Rome may become better inclined to listen to 
the voice which shall issue from our sanctuaries where all is 
done decently and in order, — when that voice, as of a holy 
Mother, shall be addressed to loving and dutiful children, 
saying, " If there arise among you a prophet or a dreamer of 
dreams, and giveth a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the 
wonder come to pass whereof he spake unto you, saying ; 
Let us go after other gods, whom thou hast not known, and 
serve them, — tkou shalt not hearken to that dreamer of 
dreams, for the Lord your God proveth you, to know 
whether ye love the Lord your God with all your heart 
and all your soul ; ye shall walk after the Lord your God, 
and fear Him, and keep His commandments, and obey His 
voice, and ye shall serve Him and cleave unto Him." — Yea, 
unto Him only. We shall then be able to hear with a chari- 
table patience, and with no sectarian rancour, the praise of 
what is good in Rome ; for we shall have no fear when we 
are ready to provide for our people w^hat they now too often 
think can only be obtained in Rome. Our people will see 
that the very miracles of Rome, if proved to be true, would, 
on account of her idolatry, be uninfluential ; and if Rome 
shall say, "Behold the signs and wonders that we do," we 
shall at once reply, " Little children keep yourselves from 
idols." 



SERMON XIIK 



Hear the Church — Matt. xvih. 17. 

This little Sanctuary, in which we are now assembled,^ 
will always be regarded by the English Churchman with 
feelings of pious sentiment and respect. Here from time 
immemorial, our sovereigns have worshipped, and our bishops 
preached : and these walls were the first which heard the 
sound of our English Liturgy. Here young Edward imbibed 
the principles of Divine Truth from the lips of Ridley and 
Cranmer; and here, in the reign of Elizabeth, her Bishops, 
supported by her united firmness, wdsdom, and piety, man- 
fully upheld the principles of the English Reformation, 
maintaining the equipoise against the Papist on the one hand, 
and on the other, against those ultra-protestants, who were 
anxious to introduce the foreign system, and to revolutionize 
religion instead of reforming the Church. Here too, Charles, 
who died a martyr for the principles of the Church, — for the 
Church of England boasts the only royal martyr in the 
calendar, — sought that strength from on high, which enabled 
him to lay down his " grey discrowned head" upon the 
block, with a blessed peace of mind, which a rebel nation? 
while depriving him of every thing else, was unable to take 
away. Here, ever since, by faithful pastors, our British 
Sovereigns have loyally, dutifully, and respectfully, but, at 
the same time, I hope with firmness and fearlessness, been 
reminded of that solemn account they will one day have to 

a The Chapel Royal, 

24 



278 



HEAR THE CHURCH. 



render to Him who is King of kings and Lord of lords, and the 
Ruler of princes, — here they have been admonished of the 
awful responsibility of high office, of the temptations by 
which they are surrounded, of the example they are bound 
to set, of their duty as the nursing fathers and mothers of 
the Church — and here those Sovereigns, in the ordinances 
and sacraments of the Gospel, have sought for that Divine 
Grace, of which they have stood in need as much as, yea, 
from their increased responsibility, from their greater temp- 
tations and difficulties, if possible, more than the very mean- 
est of their subjects. 

In such a place it cannot be deemed improper, if I briefly 
lay before you the claims, the character, and the privileges 
of the Church. May God the Holy Spirit be with me while 
I speak, and v^ith you while you hear ; with me, that I may 
speak boldly as I ought to speak; with you, that you may 
receive the word with pure aftection ; with me that I may not 
give, with you that you may not take, offence. 

Now, at the very outset, I must state that I refer to the 
Church, not as a mere National Establishment of Religion, 
but as the Church, a religious community, instrinsically 
independent of the state ; that is to say, I am about to treat 
of the Church, not in its political, but simply and solely in its 
religious character. 

No one, who reads the Bible, can for one moment doubt, 
that Religion is or ought to be a national concern, so long as 
the Bible contains such awful denunciations against national 
apostacy and national vice, and while among the predicted 
blessings of Christianity, it was foretold as one, that Kings 
should be the nursing fathers, and Queens the nursing 
mothers of the Church. And to desire to belong to that 
religious society w^iich happens to be established in our 
native land, is a sentiment patriotic, praiseworthy, and hon- 
ourable. But there is always a still further question to be 



HEAR THE CHURCH. 



279 



asked: namely, ^Yhethe^ the society of Christians estabUshed 
by the Government, and invested with certain emoluments 
and privileges, be a pm^e branch of that Church which was 
instituted by our blessed Lord and His Apostles. And if it 
be not such, however wilHng we might be to preserve the 
peace of society, by refusing to iojure a national institution, 
we should, nevertheless, be amply justified as Religionists, 
in refusing to conform to it. If the mere fact that a religious 
society is established by the civil government, be sufficient to 
claim for it our adhesion, see what the consequence must be ; 
we should be obliged, on such principles, to become Presby- 
terians in Scotland and Holland, Papists in France and Italy ; 
nay, in some parts of the world, worshippers of the Mosque, 
and votaries of Brahma I whereas the consistent Protestant 
could not, of course, conform to the established Church in 
France or Italy, until those Churches have undergone a 
thorough reformation; the consistent English Churchman 
cannot conform to the Presbyterian establishment in Scot- 
land, but in that part of the island attends the services of the 
Scottish Episcopal Church, which, though at one time 
established, was, at the Revolution in 1688,, from political 
considerations, deprived of its endowments, which were then 
given to the community of Presbyterians, which has there 
become the established religion. 

Bless God, then, we may, that the true Church is estab- 
lished here in England, and that while as patriots we would 
support its establishment for our country's good, we can 
also, as Christians, concientiously conform to it : yet it is 
not on the ground that it is established by the State, but on 
grounds much higher and holier than these, that in this sa- 
cred place we are to state its claims. So entirely independ- 
ent is the Church (as the Church) of the State, that were 
all connexion between Church and State at this very moment 
to cease, (though w^e may be sure the monarchy would be 



280 



HEAR THE CHURCH. 



destroyed,) the Church, as the Church, would continue pre- 
cisely as she now is; that is to say, our Bishops, though 
deprived of temporal rank, would still exercise all those 
spiritual functions, which, conferred by higher than human 
authority, no human authority can take away; still to the 
vacant sees they would consecrate new Bishops, still ordain 
the Clergy, still confirm the baptized, still govern the Church; 
our priests, assisted by the deacons, would still administer 
the Sacraments, and preach the Gospel; our Liturgy, even 
though we were driven to upper rooms of our towns, or to 
the very caves of the desert, would still be solemnized. We 
may be sure of this, for this very thing has happened in 
times past. When the United States of America were 
English colonies, the English Church was there established: 
at the revolutipn the State was destroyed. Monarchy has 
there ceased to exist; but the Church, though depressed for 
a time, remained uninjured: so that there — among the 
American republicans — under the superintendence of no 
fewer than sixteen^ Bishops, you will find her sacraments 
and ordinances administered, and all her ritual and liturgical 
services administered, with not less of piety, zeal, and so- 
lemnity than here in England; thereyou may see the Church, 
like an oasis in the desert, blessed by the dews of heaven, 
and shedding heavenly blessings around her, in a land where, 
because no religion is established, if it were not for her, 
nothing but the extremes of infidelity or fanaticism would 
prevail. 

And so you may perceive what is meant, when we say, 
that we wish to speak of the Church, not as an establish- 
ment, but as tlie Church, a religious society, a particular 
society of Christians. 

We will commence with an indisputable fact. In this 
country there is at this time a religious society, known by 
^Now 26,— ^m. Ed. 



HEAR THE CHURCH. 



281 



the name of the Church. The question is, when and by 
whom was this society instituted ? 

Now the E-oman Cathohcs or Papists assert that it was 
instituted and founded, hke the generahty of Protestant 
sects, by certain "Reformers in the 16th century, and thence 
they would deduce a strong argument against us. They 
would ask us, whether any man can take unto himself the 
office of the ministry, unless he be sent by God; and if we 
are scriptural Christians, if we take the Bible for our guide, 
if we act on that sound Protestant principle, with the fifth 
chapter to the Hebrews opens before us, we must answer, 
No. Then they proceed to ask, How can you prove that 
your ministers are called of God to the office ? And if their 
assertion were true that our Church was founded at the 
Reformation, we could give them no answer at all. 

But at the period of the Reformation, when Cranmer and 
Ridley flourished, there was a Church existiag and establish- 
ed in England, and as Archbishop of that Church, Cranmer, 
our celebrated Reformer, was consecrated. That Church 
had existed, as all parties admit, from the first planting- of 
Christianity in England. But Archbishop Cranmer found, 
that in his time it had become in certain respects corrupted; 
that the Bishop of Rome, for example, had usurped over it 
an authority and influence which he did not possess by right: 
that many practices prevailed, some of them contrary to 
Scripture, and some of them much abused to superstition; 
such as the worshipping of saints and images, and the use of 
the Liturgy in a language not understood by the people, 
while opinions were prevalent, (such as those relating to 
transubstantiation.) decidedly erroneous, which the Church 
did not protest against, but on the contrary rather seemed to 
sanction. Now when once these errors were pointed out 
and proved to be unscriptural, our Divines would have been 
guilty of heresy had they pertinaciously adhered to them. 
24* 



282 



HEAR THE CHURCH. 



Before the Reformation, those who adhered to them were 
not guilty of heresy, for they held the doctrines which (ever 
since the Reformation) we have renounced, from a mere 
error of fact. They supposed them to be revealed doctrines, 
and therefore they in humble faith received them : we, on 
the contrary, have ascertained that these doctrines were not 
revealed, and therefore, influenced by the same faith, we 
reject them: so that it is by one and the self-same principle, 
that both before and since the Reformation, the true mem- 
bers of the Church of England have been actuated. They 
said, and we say precisely the same, whatsoever is revealed, 
that we will not question but believe. But as to the fact, 
whether this or that doctrine was revealed, they were less 
cautious than we are now, we who, perhaps, err on the very 
side of caution'. 

But, to return to the Archbishop and the Prelates who 
aided him in the work of reformation. They discovered 
that all the errors which they detected in their Church were 
innovations gradually and imperceptibly introduced, and not 
belonging originally or essentially to the Chmxh of England ; 
that, even in the seventh century, five councils were held in 
England, when the doctrines denounced by the Reformers 
were unknown. AVhat, then, did the Archbishop and his 
associates determine to do ? They determined, as they had 
an undoubted right to do, not to overthrow the old Church 
and establish a protestaut sect in its place, but merely to 
reform, to correct abuses in the existing Church. And, 
aided by the civil powers, this they did, by asserting, first, 
their own independence, as Bishops, against the usurped 
authority of the Pope, who had no more authority of right 
in England,, than the Bishop of Canterbury had in Rome : 
by discontinuing practices which led evidently to unscriptu- 
ral superstitions ; by protesting against certain prevalent 
erroneous doctrines; by translating the Scriptures and the 
ancient Ritual and Liturgy, which latter, (the Ritual and 



HEAR THE CHURCH. 



283 



Liturgy we still retain.) besides translating, they re-aiTanged» 
But, though they did this, they still remained the same 
Bishops and divines of the same Church. An attempt was 
made to revive the old superstitions in Queen Mary's reign, 
but, by the pious firmness of Elizabeth, her Bishops were 
enabled to complete the work so happily commenced in the 
reigns of her father and brother. 

Now, from this historical statement, you see the absurdi- 
ty of which the Papists are guilty, when they accuse us of 
having deserted or dissented from the old Church, and of 
having reared a new Church, of human origin — the absur- 
dity of their speaking of theirs as the old Church and the old 
religion. 

About two years ago, this very chapel, in which we are 
now assembled, was repaired; certaio disfigurements remov- 
ed; certain improvements made : would it not be absurd, on 
that account, to contend that it is no longer the Chapel 
Royal? AVould it not be still more absurd if some one 
were to build a nevf chapel m the neighbourhood, imitating 
closely what this chapel was five years ago, and carefully 
piling up all the dust and rubbish which was at that time 
swept from hence, and then pronounce tliat, not tiiis, to be 
the ancient chapel of the sovereigns of England? The 
absurdity is at once apparent ; but this is precisely what has 
been done by the Roman Catholic or Papist. The present 
Church of England is the old Catholic Church of England, 
reformed, in the reigns of Henry, Edward, and Elizabeth, of 
certain superstitious errors : it is the same Church which 
came down from our British and Saxon ancestors, and, as 
such, it possesses its original endowments, which were 
never, as ignorant persons foolishly suppose, taken from one 
Church and given to another. The Church remained the 
same after it was reformed as it was before, just as a man 
remains the same man after he has washed his face as he 
was before ; just as- Naaman, the leper, remained the sams 



284 



HEAR THE CHURCH. 



Naaraan after he was cured of his leprosy, as he was before. 
And so regularly, so canonically was the Reformation con- 
ducted, that even those who thought no reformation requi- 
site, still remained for a time in the Church; they did not 
consider what was done (though they did not approve of it) 
sufficient to drive them into a schism. It was not till the 
twelfth year of Queen Elizabeth's reign, that, listening to 
the exhortations of the Pope, they quitted the Church and 
formed a new sect, from which the present Romish dis- 
senters have descended, and in which were retained all those 
errors in opinion and practice, all that rubbish, which the 
CathoHc Church in England had at the Reformation correct- 
ed and swept away. Let it always be remembered, that the 
English Romanists separated from us, not we from them; 
we did not go o^ut from them, but they from us. The slight- 
est acquaintance with that neglected branch of learning, 
Ecclesiastical History, will convince us of this. They left 
the Church of England to which they originally belonged, 
because they thought their bishops had reformed too much, 
had become too Protestant ; 'just as Protestant Dissenters 
left us, because they thought we had not reformed enough ; 
that we were, as they style us, too popish. The one party 
left us because they wanted no reform, the other because, 
instead of a reformation, they wished a religious revolution 
— the Reformers of the Church of England carefully pre- 
serving the middle path. 

The Church of England, then, that Church to which we 
belong, is the old Cathohc Church which was originally 
planted in this country. But the Founders of the Church 
of England — remember I do not mean the Reformers, for 
nothing but ignorance, the most gross, will speak of them as 
our founders ; ignorance which concedes to the Papists an 
argument of the very greatest importance- — the Founders or 
planters of the Church of England, both Britons and Saxons, 



HEAR THE CHURCH. 



285 



were bishops ordained by other bishops, precisely as is the 
case at the present time ; the catalogue has been carefully 
and providentially preserved from the beginning. And the 
Bishops who ordained them had been ordained by other 
Bishops, and so back to the Apostles, who ordained the first 
Bishops, being themselves ordained by Christ. This is 
what is called the doctrine of the Apostolical Succession; 
which is a doctrine of considerable importance. For unless 
the ministers of the Gospel are sent by Christ, what right 
have they to act in his name ? If we were passing through 
a foreign land, we might be perfectly competent to act as 
ambassador for the Queen of England; but would any foreign 
potentate receive us as such, unless we could produce our 
credentials ? Many a lawyer may be as well qualified to 
perform the duties of the Lord Chancellor as the Chancellor 
himself, but is he able to aci as Chancellor? No, certain- 
ly; not unless he has first received a commission from his 
sovereign? And so with respect to religion. What right 
has a man to take upon himself to act as God's ambassador, 
unless God has commissioned him so to act ? An eloquent 
man he may be, and one mighty in the Scripture, but he has 
no authority to speak in God's name, until God has given 
him that authority. How, asks St. Paul, shall they preach, 
I. 6. preach lawfully, except they be sent, i. e. sent by God ? 
No man,, says the Scripture, taketh this honour to himself, 
but He that is called of God. Nay, even Christ, says the 
Apostle, " glorified not Himself to be made an high-priest, 
but he that said unto Him, Thou art my Son, this day have 
I begotten thee;" even He entered not on His ministerial 
ofSce until He was externally appointed thereto. 

As the Lord Jesus Christ was sent by the Father, so 
were the Apostles sent by Him. "As ray Father hath sent 
Me," He says, soon after His resurrection, " even so I send 
you." Now how had the Father sent Him ; He had sent 



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Him to act as His supreme minister on earth: as such to 
appoint under Him subordinate ministers, and to do what 
He then did, when His work on earth was done, to hand on 
His commission to others. The Apostles, in hke manner, 
were sent by Christ to act as His chief ministers in the 
Church, to appoint subordinate ministers under them, and 
then, as He had done, to hand on their commission to others. 
And on this commission, after our Lord had ascended upon 
high, the Apostles proceeded to act. They formed their 
converts into Churches : these Churches consisted of bap- 
tized believers, to officiate among whom subordinate minis- 
ters, priests and deacons, were ordained, while the Apostle 
who first formed any particular Church exercised over it 
episcopal superintendence, either holdiag an occasional visi- 
tation, by sending for the clergy to meet hiu:i, (as St. Paul 
summoned to 3Iiletus the clergy of Ephesus,) or else trans- 
mitting to them those pastoral addresses, which, under the 
name of Epistles, form so important a portion of Holy Scrip- 
ture. At length, however, it became necessary for the 
Apostles to proceed yet further, and to do as their Lord had 
empowered them to do, to hand on their commission to 
others, that at their own death the governors of the Church 
might not be extinct. Of this we have an instance in Titus, 
who was placed in Crete by St. Paul, to act as chief pastor 
or Bishop, and another in Timothy, who was in like manner 
set over the Church of Ephesus. And when Timothy was 
thus appointed to the office of chief pastor he was associated 
with St. Paul, who, in writing to the Philippians, com- 
mences his salutation thus: "Paul and Timotheus, to the 
servants of Jesus Christ who are at Philippi, with the Bish- 
ops and Deacons." 

Now we have here the three orders of the ministry clearly 
alluded to. The title of Bishop is, to be sure, given to the 
second order : but it is not for words, but for things, that we 



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287 



are to contend. Titles may be changed while offices remain : 
so senators exist, though they are not now of necessity old 
men ; and most absurd would it be, to contend that when we 
speak of the Emperor Constantine, we can mean no other 
office than that held under the Roman repubUc, because we 
find Cicero also saluted as emperor. 

So stood the matter in the apostolic age, when the chief 
pastors of the Church were generally designated Apostles or 
Angels, i. e. messengers sent by God Himself. In the next 
century, the office remaining, the designation of those who 
held it was changed, the title of Apostle was confined to the 
twelve, including St. Paul ; and the chief pastors who suc- 
ceeded them were thenceforth called Bishops, the subordi- 
nate ministers being styled priests and deacons. And thus 
we see, as Christ was sent by the Father, so He sent the 
Apostles ; as the Apostles were sent by Christ, so did they 
send the first race of Bishops: as the first race of Bishops 
was sent by the Apostles, so they sent the second race of 
Bishops, the second the third, and so down to our present 
Bishops, who can thus trace their spiritual descent from St. 
Peter and St. Paul, and prove their Divine authority to 
govern the Churches over which they are canonically ap- 
pointed to preside. Like the Apostles, they have the right 
to appoint under them the subordinate ministers ; and so let 
the Papists say what they will, the Clergy of England can 
establish their right by commission from Christ to minister 
in sacred things. 

Such was originally the constitution not of one or two 
Churches only, but of the Church Universal — the Church 
Catholic. Against the Church so constituted in various 
places, sectarians arose, even in the apostolic age. These 
sects were generally, like modern sects, distinguished by 
the names of their founders. But true Churches disdained 
to be called after any human being whatever, since of them 



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Christ was the Author and Finisher. The episcopal 
Churches, persevering in the Apostles' doctrine and fellow- 
ship, were styled collectivelv the Catholic Church; and in 
order to distinguish it from the surrounding sects, the true 
orthodox Church in any particular country was sometimes 
called a branch of the Catholic Church, sometimes the 
Catholic Church of that place, and hence the term Catholic 
came by degrees to signify (as Bishop Beveridge remarks) 
much the same as our term orthodox — the orthodox Church, 
and orthodox members of the same — that Church which 
adhered to the scriptural discipline and doctrine universally 
received, as distinguished from the discipline invented and 
the doctrine propounded, by individual teachers. 

You see here, by the way, the folly (if it be not a sin, for 
it is calling "evil good, and good evil.") of styling the Romish 
Dissenters in England, as some persons in extreme igno- 
rance, and others perhaps with bad intentions do, Catholics : 
for this insinuates, that we of the Church of England are 
heretics, whereas you have seen that ours, not theirs, is the 
true and orthodox Church of Christ in this country, the real 
Catholic Church in and of England. If they dislike the 
name of Papist, we may speak of them as Romanists, or 
even Roman Catholics. Roman Catholics they may be 
styled, for (^tliough schismatics and dissenters in England) in 
France, and Italy, they belong to a Church true by descent, 
though corrupted by Roman or Popish superstitions. A 
bad man is still a man, and you may refuse to associate with 
him before he reforms. — but still you will never permit him 
so to style himself a man as to imply that you yourself are 
an inhuman being. 

Pure in its doctrine, apostolic in its discipline, and edify- 
ing in its ceremonies, this Catholic and Apostolic Church 
diffused its blessings, and preserved its purity for many hun- 
dred years. In the middle ages it existed, still working 



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289 



good and administering grace according to the exigence of 
the times ; emitting a ray of light when all around was dark. 
But the surrounding ignorance and gloom prevented the 
detection of various corruptions and disfigurements which by 
degrees crept into it, until, in the sixteenth century, the sun 
of learning having dawned upon Europe, its defects in this 
country began to betray themselves too obviously to be 
any longer tolerated. Of these defects, so far as the English 
branch of the Church was concerned, the Bishops of the 
Church of England, as I have before stated, by degrees became 
aware, and while they venerated the fabric which Apostles 
had reared, and of which Christ Himself was the chief 
corner stone, they carefully removed the incrustations which 
disfigured it, and sweeping away the rubbish by which it had 
been overlaid, displayed the real Rock upon which it had 
been built. Thus was the Catholic and Apostolic Church, 
of which we express our belief in the creeds, rescued in 
England from Popish domination, and (reformed or brought 
back to its primitive purity, digniried in its simplicity) it re- 
tained the ministry in regular succession from the Apostles, 
and a Ritual and Liturgy whicli can themselves in great 
part be traced back to the Apostolic age. 

Although causelessly to separate from such a Church must 
be a schismatical act. yet we do not uncharitably pronounce 
sentence of condemnation upon those who have, by circum- 
stances over which they have no control, been brought up 
without its pale. In error, of course, we believe them to be. 
but certainly not in such error from that circumstance as to 
endanger their salvation : and if we suppose them, as we must 
do, to lack our privileges, this ought only to make us respect 
them the more if at any time we fnd them (with fewer ad- 
vantages) surpassing us in godliness. We do not confine 
God's grace and favour to the Church, for we remember that 
though Job was not a member of the then Church of God^ 
25 



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still lie was a man eminently pious and highly-favoured ; we 
remember, that though Balaam was not in the Church, yet 
he was an inspired Prophet; we remember that Jethro, also, 
the father-in-law of Moses, though not a proselyte to Israel, 
(and the Church at that time was confined to the Israelites,) 
was yet a servant of God ; we remember that the Rechabites 
were actually commended by God at the very time He pass- 
ed censure upon those who were then His Church — the 
people of Israel. 

Remembering all this, we say not that other denomina- 
tions of Christians are cast out from the mercy of God 
through the Saviour, because they belong not to the Church ; 
all that we say is, that it does not follow that these conces- 
sions must render void the divine appointment of the Churchy 
the divine coimnand to all nations, and of course to all man- 
kind, to be united with it, or the scriptural evidence for epis- 
copacy as the divinely sanctioned organization of its ministry, 
— and we contend, that a treasure having been committed to 
us, we are not to undervalue it lest we should offend others, 
but are to preserve it in its purity, and in all its integrity to 
transmit it to our childi*en and our children's children. 

And let me ask, Is not the privilege of belonging to a 
Church thus orthodox in its doctrine, and true by descent, 
thus both Catholic and Protestant, a privilege for which 
we should be deeply grateful to the providence and grace of 
God ? And will not the account we shall have to render be 
awful, if we neglect, despise, or forego the advantages thus 
placed within our reach? 

Let us ever remember, that the primary object for which 
the Church was instituted by Christ, its Author and Finisher, 
and for which the apostolical succession of its ministers was 
established, — that the primary object for which through ages 
of persecution, and ages of prosperity, and ages of darkness, 
and ages of corruption, and ages of reformation, and ages of 
kititudinarianism, and now in an age of rebuke and blasphemy,. 



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291 



now when we have fallen on evil days and evil tongues, the 
primary object for which the Church has still been preserved 
by a providential care, marvellous sometimes if not mira- 
culous in our eyes, was and is, to convey supernaturally the 
saving merits of the atoning blood of the Lamb of God, and 
the sanctifying graces of His Holy Spirit to the believer's 
soul. In the Church it is, that the appointed means are to 
be found by which that mysterious union with Christ is 
promoted, in which our spiritual life consists,— in her it is, 
that the third Person of the Blessed Trinity abideth for ever, 
gradually to change the heart of sinful man, and to make that 
flesh which He finds stone, — gradually to prepare us for 
heaven, while our ascended Saviour is preparing heaven for 
us. And oh ! my brethren ! what a privilege it is to have 
this well of living waters in which you may wash and be 
clean ! You know that you are sinful creatures, very far 
gone from righteousness ; you know that your condition is 
such that you cannot turn and prepare yourselves by your 
own natural strength and good works to faith and calling 
upon God ; you know that by nature you cannot love the 
Lord your God with all your heart, and soul, and strength : 
you cannot discharge the various duties of your various 
situations in life ; you know that whatever your condition now 
may be, the hour must come of affliction and sorrow, of sick- 
ness and sadness, the inevitable hour of death; and the 
Church is instituted to convey to you pardon upon your re- 
pentance, and grace in time of need ; it is instituted to in- 
struct you in your ignorance, to comfort you in your sorrows, 
to elevate you in your devotions, to bring you into com- 
munion with your Saviour, your Sanctifier, your God ; to 
prepare you for the hour of death, yea, for the day of judg- 
ment; and this she chiefly does through the Sacraments of 
the Gospel, and the other divinely appointed ordinances of 
religion, if of them you will but avail yourselves. 



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But this is not all ; while the Church thus miDisters grace 
to individuals, it is part of her business to preserve, hand 
down, and proclaim the truth, the whole truth, as it is in 
Jesus. And our duty, therefore, it is — especially, if we 
happen by God's Providence to be called to situations of 
influence, rank, or authority — by all the means in our 
power, to increase her efficiency in this respect, to place her 
on the Yv^atch-tower, that her voice may be heard through 
the length and the breadth of the land : our duty it is to take 
care that her faith be preserved intact and pure; our duty it 
is to vindicate her from the glosses of ignorance, and the 
misrepresentations of prejudice and malice; our duty it is 
clearly to define, and zealously to maintain those pecuhar 
doctrines and that peculiar discipline, which have always 
marked, and dc^ still continue to mark the distinction between 
the Church of Christ, administered under the superintend- 
ence of chief Pastors or Bishops who have regularly suc- 
ceeded to the Apostles, from those sects of Christianity which 
exist under self-appointed teachers. 

Against the Church the world seems at this time to be 
set in array. To be a true and faithful member of the 
Church, requires no little moral courage. Basely to pre- 
tend to belong to her while designing mischief against her in 
the heart, this is easy enough; but m.anfully to contend for 
her because she is the Church, a true Church, a pure 
Church, a holy Church, this is difficult to those who court 
the praise of men, or fear the censure of the world. May 
the great God of heaven, may Christ the great Bishop and 
Shepherd of souls, who is over all things in the Church, put 
it, my brethren, into your hearts and minds to say and feel 
(as I do,) "As for me and my house, we will live in the 
Church, we will die in the Church, and if need shall be like 
aur martyred forefathers, we will die for the Church." 



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